Former Presidential Candidate Ron Paul Hospitalized After Unknown Medical Incident During Livestream

Ron Paul, former U.S. Congressman and three-time presidential hopeful, has been hospitalized after suffering a medical-related incident. According to CNBC, 85-year-old Paul was taping an episode of his YouTube show, Ron Paul Liberty Report, when he began to slur his speech and speak unintelligibly. There has been no official word on what exactly doctors are saying, but some have speculated that he could have suffered a stroke. That is unconfirmed at this time, however.

Following the frightening incident, Paul was given medical attention, and a photo of him in a hospital bed was tweeted out from his personal account, assuring his supporters that his is “doing fine.” Senator Rand Paul, who is one of Paul’s five sons, ha since tweeted about the incident, saying, “Thank God, Dad is doing well. Thank you for all your prayers today.” CNBC noted that it was able to confirm that an individual by the name of Ron Paul was being treated in the emergency room of a Lake Jackson, Texas hospital, but that was all the information that could be provided. The outlet also stated that it has reached out to The Ron Paul Institute for comment, but at the time of this writing there had not been a response.

Paul is a member of the Libertarian Party, but has also served as a Republican. In 1988, he ran as the Libertarian presidential nominee, and then ran in 2008 and 2012 as a Republican nominee. He served served as the U.S. Representative for Texas’s 22nd congressional district from 1976 to 1977, and then again from 1979 to 1985. He also served as U.S. Representative for Texas’s 14th congressional district from 1997 to 2013. Prior to his political career, Paul served as a flight surgeon in the U.S. Air Force during the mid 1960s, and also worked as an obstetrician-gynecologist for roughly two decades.

Interestingly, in 2010 Paul became the first Representative in history to serve concurrently with a child in Congress when Rand was elected to the U.S. Senate from Kentucky. Paul is also widely considered to be the “intellectual godfather” of the Tea Party movement, which is a fiscally conservative political group that is, in most circumstances, very opposed to matters of interventionism. This stems from his vocal criticism of mass surveillance policies such as the NSA surveillance programs and the USA PATRIOT Act.