Caroline Sunshine isn’t buying fellow conservative pundit Scott Jennings’ latest claims about Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who hasn’t been seen in public for 75 days.

Sunshine, a former communications director for President Donald Trump, appeared with Jennings on CNN’s “NewsNight with Abby Phillip” as part of a panel Thursday to discuss the Trump administration’s handling of the Iran war.

Their chat became noticeably heated when Sunshine cast doubt on Jennings’ claim he’d spoken with McConnell in early July and that the two men had “talked for just shy of 20 minutes” about Iran, Ukraine and Maine’s hotly contested U.S. Senate race.

“I don’t believe you had a phone call with Mitch McConnell, I’ll tell you that,” Sunshine said. “I don’t believe you had a 20-minute phone call with Mitch McConnell, and I don’t think a lot of people do, either.”

Jennings shrugged off the remark by accusing Sunshine of sounding “like a garden-variety conspiracy theorist.”

Sunshine, however, wasn’t deterred. “How is he? Have you talked to him lately?” she shot back.

“Yeah,” Jennings replied.

Seconds later, host Abby Phillips intervened by trying to steer the conversation back on course. “We are not going to change the subject,” she told the two pundits.

Sunshine to Jennings: I don't believe you had a 20 minute phone call Mitch McConnell. How is he? Have you talked to him lately? pic.twitter.com/YCX5rJ8lM1

Jennings, who previously worked as an aide to former President George W. Bush, is reportedly among Trump’s top picks to replace White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. He and Sunshine previously swapped on-air barbs during a joint CNN appearance last month.

McConnell has not been seen in public since being admitted to the hospital on June 14, three days after his last Senate vote. Since then, speculation about the 84-year-old’s health and mental acuity has gone into overdrive, no doubt exacerbated by the July 11 death of Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) at age 71.

A day after Graham’s passing, McConnell’s office broke its silence by releasing a photo on X showing the senator in what appeared to be a hospital bed. In an accompanying statement, the senator said he’d landed in the hospital after a fall, but steered clear of further details.

“My doctors have confirmed that I didn’t break any bones or suffer a concussion. I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke. I don’t have any tumors or hemorrhages,” he wrote. “But I was briefly unconscious and was taken to the hospital. While receiving excellent care over the past several weeks, I’ve also had to deal with a mild case of pneumonia.”

He added, “I’ll keep working hard to get back on the Senate floor as soon as possible. And I’ll keep you posted on the progress of my recovery. Until then, I’m so grateful for your prayers and well wishes.”

Though McConnell’s office has shared a few more updates since then, the statements have done little to quash rumors about the senator’s current status. On July 23, the Louisville Courier-Journal went as far as to publish a satirical version of McConnell’s obituary, with writer Joseph Gerth calling the senator out for having “destroyed the country’s ability to have meaningful dialogue and cemented our nation’s politics as an arena in which winning is the only thing that matters.”

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