Fetterman Complains Media Shamed Him Into Showing Up For Senate Duties
Ben Curtis/AP
Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said Saturday he has begun attending more Senate hearings and votes not out of a renewed commitment to his job, but because the media “weaponized” his absences and mental health struggles.
In an interview with The New York Times published Saturday morning, Fetterman expressed frustration with what he described as a media-driven narrative that he is not fit to serve.
He acknowledged missing numerous Senate duties over the past year, including committee hearings and procedural votes, and said he does not find aspects of his job to be meaningful.
“I’m showing up because people in the media have weaponized [my attendance],” Fetterman told Times reporter Annie Karni. “Simple things are turned. That’s exactly what happened.”
He also commented on recent reports that he has been erratic since being elected to the Senate in 2022. He told Karni he is now second-guessing his decision to be open about his mental health struggles.
In 2023, Fetterman was vocal after his six-week stay at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where he was treated for depression following a stroke.
“It shook me that people are willing to weaponize that I got help,” he said Saturday.
Fetterman said that under recent scrutiny, he is showing up to work more but called his presence “performative.”
Karni reported, “Instead, he said he was ‘showing up because people in the media have weaponized’ his absenteeism on Capitol Hill to portray him as mentally unfit, when in fact it is a product of a decision to spend more time at home and less on the mundane tasks of being a senator.”
Fetterman said of his attendance, “The votes I missed were overwhelmingly procedural; they’re even called ‘bed check’ votes… I had to make a decision: getting here and sticking my thumb in the door for three seconds for a procedural vote or spend Monday night as a dad-daughter date.”
The Pennsylvania Democrat also compared speculation about his mental state to sports media speculation about legendary former NFL coach Bill Belichick and his much-younger girlfriend Jordon Hudson.
“This became the Belichick girlfriend story of politics,” he said. “It just keeps going and going.”
Earlier this month, sources said to be close to Fetterman told Intelligencer the senator’s behavior was at times jarring. In February 2023, Fetterman reportedly walked into traffic near the Library of Congress and was nearly hit by a car. He was subsequently hospitalized for dehydration.
In one excerpt of the report, the outlet’s Ben Terris reported, “One staffer told me there would be entire days when they couldn’t let anyone outside the office be around him because he was in ‘some sort of state’ and might say ‘really fucked-up shit to constituents.'”
