When Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman was hospitalized for depression in 2023, many on Capitol Hill celebrated it as a moment of courage and a willingness to be open about mental health struggles.
Now, a startling picture of relapse and its associated cost is being associated with him after a deeply sourced profile on Fetterman was published Friday in New York Magazine’s Intelligencer by reporter Ben Terris.
Democrats on Capitol Hill have yet to comment. But the shock from the profile’s reporting was evident across social media and on political talk programs.
“He needs to resign,” The Bulwark’s Jonathan Last, a supporter of the senator who wrote that he “was the first person to suggest that John Fetterman could run for president”, said on The Secret Podcast with co-host Sarah Longwell.
Longwell, who agreed, called the piece’s revelations “career-ending.”
In the piece, Terris quotes extensively from Fetterman’s former chief of staff, Capitol Hill veteran Adam Jentleson. He also relies on statements from current and former employees in the senator’s office who describe a man harrowed by the challenges of his office and struggling to accept the help he may still require to recover fully.
Fetterman, who suffered a stroke during the final months of his 2022 run for Senate, pulled off a much-needed victory for Democrats even after a debate performance made clear that he was still suffering dire auditory processing issues and speech problems.
But his recovery inspired many on the Hill and around the country. While he continues to rely to some extent on auditory transcription devices during conversations, he remains capable of speaking in press gaggles and in interviews.
In private, however, things are reportedly far less encouraging. For the first time, New York Magazine reported that the senator was involved in a serious car wreck in May or June of 2024, one which injured his wife Gisele, after he ignored staffers’ concerns and got behind the wheel, then supposedly fell asleep. A video of him arguing with a commercial airplane pilot over the visibility of his seatbelt resurfaced this weekend after the profile was published.
And there are other interactions between the senator and those around him outlined in New York Magazine’s profile and other sources that are turning heads, including supposedly frequent and heated personal exchanges with his wife, Gisele Fetterman, over Israel’s siege of Gaza and other issues.
Hellbound and Down 