Mitch McConnell, the Senate Minority Leader, is now dealing with the uncomfortable fact that he is elderly and facing some serious medical issues. And his Republican colleagues haven’t failed to notice.

The 81-year-old Republican senator from Kentucky has worried colleagues with the problems as he ages in the spotlight, but according to MailOnline, he’s intent on completing one final mission.

He especially worried his colleagues when he was suddenly unable to speak during a press conference and had to be led away from the podium, so it’s understandable that his colleagues are concerned.

One thing McConnell hopes to do before he leaves office is to bring the heart of the GOP back to the more traditional Reagan-era philosophies, hoping to project “peace through strength,” and to shut down defectors who would prefer to see Ukraine losing its war with Russia rather than sending any further U.S. dollars to the cause.

McConnell recently talked to Politico, and he was definitely steering the conversation in one particular direction, noted reporter Jonathan Martin. The GOP leader “repeatedly steered our conversation toward Trump, and made clear his campaign to bring Republicans back to an assertive defense of Ukraine was ‘his way of battling what Trump has done to the party,'” Martin writes.

“I think, and this got me attacked by Tucker Carlson back when he was still on his show, I think the most important thing going on internationally is the Ukraine war,” McConnell said.

And this is exactly why McConnell put together a dinner to persuade Finland’s president to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance, and it is specifically why he led the eastward push of NATO nearly all the way up to Russia’s borders during the late 199os.

McConnell sharply criticized Trump’s messaging. At the time Trump threatened to pull out of NATO if other nations didn’t cough up more for defense, his seemingly close ties with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and his comments on the 2024 campaign trail — have pushed several newly elected Senate Republicans into the isolationist mindset of more than a few of their House colleagues.

MailOnline notes that there were 11 senators who opposed a Ukraine aid bill, seven of which were elected in 2018 or later.

“That’s a reflection of the challenges at the base created by the former president’s reluctance to endorse the important mission,” McConnell told Martin.

McConnell is fighting to defend Ukraine and the NATO alliance Ukraine seeks to be part of. He’s gone so far as to travel to Ukraine to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky, organized lunches at the Capitol with Eastern European diplomats, and used every news conference and floor speech to remind Americans of the stakes at risk.

Undoubtedly McConnell wants this to be part of the legacy he leaves behind, but as he grows older, this is almost certainly more and more difficult.

And in private, many of his colleagues have become “more alarmed” and suggested he get hearing aids.

“He was sitting there as the conversation went on around him,” one colleague noted, describing a recent Senate GOP lunch with McConnell.

But despite the fact that the GOP leader has taken at least a couple of serious falls and became suddenly mute during the aforementioned press conference he is determined to complete his mission.

“I still believe in the Republican party of Ronald Reagan,” McConnell said.

“There are those who are trying to redefine what a Republican is — I’m not in that group,” he said. “And so this is, I think, an important point for the future of the party, and given my place in my career at this point, this is the most important thing going on that I might be able to have some impact on.”

Many of these “newer Republicans” like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Georgia) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (Colorado) among others have been vociferous in wanting to see where every dollar goes in supporting Ukraine, and are against sending more money.

So it’s difficult to know if McConnell will complete his mission, but I don’t think too many of us who are truly progressive, will mind when he’s gone. If you remember this is a man who earned the nickname “Grim Reaper” because he shot down so many bills presented by House Democrats. He rushed through the confirmation of right-wing Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett and refused to consider Merrick Garland when he was former President Barack Obama’s pick for the Supreme Court in 2016.

I don’t think too many real Democrats will miss him when he’s gone.