The curious disappearance of the New Jersey representative has stretched past the 75-day mark, and the people are… weirded out.
A GOP congressman has been missing for weeks now—and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La) is, as usual, playing the clueless (read; stupid) card.
The curious disappearance of Rep. Tom Kean (R-New Jersey) was first reported by Politico in April, after he missed more than 50 roll-call votes, neither one of his fellow GOP state reps. said they’d heard from him, and his neighbors reported that his house looked vacant. (To date, he’s last been seen doing his job on March 5.) And when his wife, was spotted on Tuesday by a NOTUS reporter, she apparently refused to comment when asked about her husband’s whereabouts. She’s also since vanished—along with her car in the driveway—and no one’s seen her, or her husband, even walking their family dog. Weird!
The most unsettling detail of this bizarre saga is that while Kean’s team has insisted he’s just undergoing a “medical issue,” none of it has actually come directly from the horse’s mouth. The closest we got was via his social media, when Kean apparently tweeted late last month, “My doctors continue to assure me that my recovery will be complete and that I will be back to the job I love very soon.” This excuse has since been repeated by his chief of staff as well as his father—though neither provided much more context besides saying his disappearance was a health-related one.
And 75 days and 88 missed roll-call votes later, it appears “very soon” has still yet to come.
Seeing as you can’t have a good old mystery in Washington, D.C. without the House speaker being pressured by reporters and colleagues into commenting on a matter, before then emphasizing how little he knows, Johnson this week finally provided some (unhelpful) insights of his own.
“Look, I talked to Tom,” Johnson told reporters at a GOP leadership press conference on Wednesday, adding, “He sounded good and optimistic and I think we’re expecting him back here soon. He’s had a medical issue and he’s gonna be fully transparent and disclose all that, and that’s what he told me. But I don’t even know the details.” Per Johnson, the two spoke on the phone nearly three weeks ago. “He’s going to get re-elected, and we look forward to welcoming him back here very soon.” Hm.
Alas, just as finite as the infinite constellation of things Johnson does not know is the fact that Republicans are panicking about their ever-narrowing GOP majority in the lower chamber, of which their own policies seem to be teeing them up for big-time losses. And! Coincidence? Kean’s seat is one of the most vulnerable in the state, let alone the country—and he’s currently running for re-election in what Politico suggests could be “his most challenging congressional bid to date.” So… something seems up.
But—like Johnson says—who knows?!