Is John Fetterman ok?
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Who is Senator John Fetterman and why is he unique?
Senator John Fetterman is not like his colleagues. Oh, yeah. For starters, he wears a hoodie and gym shorts to work in Congress. But he's also a Democrat who went down to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Donald Trump before he re-entered office back in January. He's bucked most of his party on the war in Gaza, saying his support of Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu was unconditional. He went on the Joe Rogan experience to bro down.
And then the whole nation just had like a meltdown, like, oh my God, the Senate's on fire because I dress like a slob. And then there is health issues.
The man who got a lot of credit, rightfully so, for bringing his mental health struggles to the fore, to kind of destigmatizing depression and mental health issues in politics, may be struggling more than he had let on.
We're gonna ask if Jon Fetterman is okay on Today Explained.
What's up, y'all? It's Kenny Beecham. We are currently watching the best playoff basketball since I can't even remember when. This is what we've been waiting for all season long. And on my show, Small Ball, I'll be breaking down the series matchups, major performances, in-game coaching decisions, and game strategy and so much more for the most exciting time of the NBA calendar.
Hey. Today Explained, Sean Ramos from here with Ben Terrace, D.C. correspondent for New York Magazine. Ben just wrote a big profile of John Fetterman that made a lot of noise because it revealed that his health struggles may be far graver than people previously thought. We started back in 2023, around the time Fetterman checked into Walter Reed Medical Center in Maryland.
He has a difficult moment at a retreat for Democrats at the Library of Congress. He's supposed to be the talk of the town and everybody wants to talk to him and get to know him, but he's sitting quietly in a corner drinking Coke and not talking to anybody. Staff gets an alert a short time later from somebody who saw him walking in the street, almost into traffic, almost getting hit by a car. And they rush to find him. They find him wandering around Capitol Hill, and they bring him to George Washington, where they decide that he is severely dehydrated, not having another stroke, which was the big worry. And they prescribe him with medication for depression. And they think, OK, maybe he's going to be on the right track here.
But a week later, he is having a meeting with Senator Sherrod Brown. These are two guys who should get along great, you know, a couple of purple state Democrats who I think I write in the piece are more comfortable in union halls than in the halls of Congress. Like these are kind of working man type senators. At least that's how they present themselves. But the meeting is very weird. And Fetterman is drawn into himself. He's speaking so quietly that hardly anybody can hear him. The meeting kind of ends uncomfortably and staff notices that Fetterman is now starting to walk in what one person describes as figure eights out in the hallway, kind of looking over his shoulder as if he's being followed by some sort of shadowy figure.
And that's when they call a doctor and they all decide this is time to get him to Walter Reed. This is serious.
Tonight, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman is getting treatment for clinical depression. Fetterman's office says he checked himself into Walter Reed Medical Center. They say the senator experienced depression on and off through his life, but it recently became severe. We only know what they're telling us so far. You know, many neurologists say it is common for stroke survivors to suffer from major depression.
Now, Walter Reed is really tough. He gets there and he's experiencing these kind of delusions early on while he's there. If he takes a bed at the hospital, he might get arrested. He tells doctors that he thinks his family is wearing a wire. He has this belief all of a sudden that he has to break out of his room because there's a political rally happening in the lobby of Walter Reed and he has to get there. At this point, doctors are a little worried about what's going on. And over the course of his time at the hospital, they change his medication. His mental health struggles go into, quote, remission.
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