Today's Poll Question: Should Tom Kean Jr.'s three-month unexplained absence disqualify him from re-election?

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Get ready to vote on today's daily poll question at smerconish.com.

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But first, Michael explains it for you right here.

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Welcome to The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

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For Independent Minds.

**Michael Smerconish** (0:14)
Hey gang, today is Friday, it's the 5th of June, 2026 Here's your poll question at smerconish.com. Should Representative Tom Kean Jr.'s three month unexplained absence disqualify him from re-election? A story that we discussed on Wednesday in the aftermath of the Tuesday election in New Jersey. The Tuesday election where Rebecca Bennett, who's a former Navy helicopter pilot, won a multi-candidate field in New Jersey's 7th Congressional District to run against Kean Jr., who hasn't been seen since he last cast a ballot in Congress on March the 5th. He's making it very difficult through the very limited things that he and his office have said to defend him on all of this. And yet, I want to defend him on all of this because of the presumption of what I think, I don't know, but of what I think might be ailing him.
But he's not giving us the tools with which to provide that defense. I'll explain further in just a moment.

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The Smerconish Podcast from SiriusXM.

**Michael Smerconish** (1:19)
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The Daily Poll Question at smerconish.com.

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A non-scientific social political question designed to spark broader discussions about current issues.

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Get ready to cast your ballot and leave a rating and review of this podcast on your favorite podcast app.

**Michael Smerconish** (2:57)
So Wednesday, the day after the primary election, The New York Times had this big feature, the story behind the story. A congressman vanished and we went looking. And Christopher Magg wrote it, Representative Tom Kean Jr. as of Tuesday afternoon had not been seen in public for nearly three months. The mystery of his disappearance grew gradually beginning with a news update in March by a political website noting that the New Jersey congressman was missing a week's worth of votes in Washington.
He last voted in Congress on March 5 Missing a few votes isn't necessarily cause for alarm, but after the Easter recess two of his Republican colleagues in Congress from New Jersey told reporters they'd been told nothing about his whereabouts. Soon other Republican leaders said they were upset that their texts to him had gone unanswered. The story eventually gained traction when Dan Scharfenberger, Kean's chief of staff, told the New York Times in May, quote, there's no cameras where Tom is.
Okay, well, I read that, and my assumption, my assumption was he must be dealing with a brain health issue. Maybe it's an addiction issue. I don't know, because if it were a physical ailment, I would expect him, his office, to say, God forbid, you know, he's battling cancer, he's taken a fall, he broke this, he's dealing with that. I mean, I'm very big in trying to address the stigma, to eradicate the stigma. The stigma meaning we just don't deal with brain health issues the way we do with physical ones. You would think nothing of calling your boss and saying, I can't come in today, I've got the flu.
Well, what if it were anxiety and depression? Would you be so willing? Would you be so forthcoming? Probably not. And yet, I'm for looking at those circumstances with parody, treating them equally. That's the only way that I think we can do a more effective job of treating the brain health issue. So if this is a brain health issue, you know, please, Congressman, give me something that allows me to defend you. In the way that I defended John Fetterman, when Fetterman went to Walter Reed and had to do deal with some brain health issues. And I respected and told Senator Fetterman that that he put it in play publicly and said, look, here's what I'm up against. And Fetterman, you know, now serving in the Senate, I get it, underwater with Democrats, above water with Republicans, but that has everything to do with policy. Nobody talks about, nobody talks about his mental fitness.