Since his return from his months-long, health related absence from the U.S. Senate John Fettermman has been talking to the media nonstop.
But his fellow Democrats really wish he’d just be quiet.
And now Democrats want John Fetterman to go back into hiding after he made one game-changing admission.
Senator John Fetterman’s (D-PA) return to the Senate hasn’t exactly gone as smoothly as Democrats would have liked.
Last Tuesday, in one of his first public appearances, Fetterman chaired a Senate Subcommittee on Food, Nutrition, Speciality Crops, Organics and Research hearing.
From the moment he began his opening statement, it was clear he is still dealing with severely depleted mental and physical faculties.
John Fetterman chaired a subcommittee hearing today.
Here is his opening statement. pic.twitter.com/Y6EHYkhkBZ
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 19, 2023
After the hearing concluded, C-SPAN cameras caught Senator Fetterman engaging with others in attendance with small talk, but eagle-eye viewers on social media noticed something strange.
In clips posted to Twitter, a Fetterman staffer can be seen holding an iPad up to the Senator’s face in order for an app to transcribe what is being said to him so he can understand what is being said to him.
Of course, as has come to be expected, C-SPAN cameras quickly cut away from the scene once it became clear what exactly the staffer was doing.
John Fetterman has a staffer holding up his iPad as he talks to people after the hearing ended.
CSPAN cut away from that pretty quickly. pic.twitter.com/ujhOxIZuDk
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 19, 2023
The Pennsylvania Senator has also made plenty of media appearances in the short amount of time he’s been back in the Senate.
And during one of those many softball interviews, Fetterman admitted to People that the near-fatal stroke he suffered just days before last year’s Pennsylvania Democrat U.S. Senate Primary – and obviously continues to feel the effects of – actually left him in far worse condition than he or his campaign ever led the public to believe.
Despite his campaign’s many claims throughout the 2022 Midterms – like claiming he was “90% recovered” just two months after nis near-fatal stroke – Senator Fetterman admitted he realized he was in worse shape than they’d let on after his disastrous debate performance in which he simply ramble incoherently in response to each question.
“But I was still in recovery from the stroke,” Fetterman told People. “It would be [like] trying to run a marathon with a broken ankle.”
Furthermore, he also admitted that soon after he was elected to the U.S. Senate, he began experiencing the issues with depression that ultimately landed him in the hospital months later.
Unlike the story that was told when he first checked himself in for mental health treatment – which was simply that it was a small issue that just popped up recently – Fetterman revealed that he stopped eating or drinking, and even stopped taking a heart medication prescribed to him by doctors after he was rushed to the hospital with a serious heart issue in 2017.
As the Senator put it, he “wasn’t functional.”
“There wasn’t one person in my life that said, ‘Yeah, you really seem great. You sound fine here.’” Fetterman added. “When an eight-year-old can realize that something’s really wrong . . .”
It’s interesting that Senator Fetterman is only now telling the American people – and most importantly, the people of Pennsylvania – the true extent of his health issues when he has a more than five-year runway before he has to face voters again.
At this rate, just imagine what voters will learn about John Fetterman next.
Political Animal News will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
