Harrisburg, Pennsylvania (AP) – Sen Democrat. John Fetterman De Pennsylvania met last week with representatives of a teachers' union in his country of origin when things quickly dislodged.
Shortly after, Fetterman started to repeat himself, shouting and wondering why “everyone is angry with me”, “why everyone hates me, what did I do” and slammed his hands on a desk, according to a person who was informed of what happened.
While the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end and inaugurated visitors in the corridor, where she broke down. The staff member was comforted by teachers who were themselves shaken by Fetterman's behavior, according to a second person who was informed separately from the meeting.
The interaction at the Washington office of Fetterman, described at the Associated Press by the two people who spoke about it under the guise of anonymity, came the day before the fact that New York magazine published a story in which former staff members and political advisers in Fetterman have expressed concerns about the senator's mental health.
This story included a letter of 2024, also obtained by the AP, in which the chief of staff of Fetterman, Adam Jentleson, told a neuropsychiatrist who had treated Fetterman for the depression that the senator seemed to be out of his recovery plan and presented an alarming behavior, including a tendency to “long and re -evidence long”.
Asked about the meeting with the representatives of the teachers' union, Fetterman said in a statement through his office that they “had an animated conversation on our collective frustration in the face of the Trump administration cuts to our educational system”. He also said that he “would always support our teachers, and I will always reject the attempt to transform Pennsylvania public schools into a good program.”
Fetterman earlier this week repelled the New York Magazine History as a “successful play of a source and some anonymous sources, so there is nothing new”. Questioned by a journalist in a Senate corridor what he would say to people who are concerned about him, Fetterman said: “They are not. They are in fact not worried. This is a successful piece. There are no news.”
Reached by phone, Aaron Chapin, president of Pennsylvania State Education Association who was in a meeting with Fetterman, said that he did not want to discuss what was a private conversation.
Survive a stroke, fight depression
The meeting of the teachers' union adds to the questions raised on the health and mental behavior of fetterman barely three years after he survived a stroke On the 2022 campaign path he said almost killed him. Which was followed by a End with depression This landed at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for six weeks, barely a month after taking oath to the Senate.
Control also occurs at a time when Fetterman, now serving the third year of his mandate, is criticized By many basic democrats in his country of origin to be ready to cooperate with President Donald Trump, in the middle of the growing alarm of Democrats on Trump's actions and agenda.
Fetterman – which was diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, in which the heart muscle is weakening and enlarged, and hearing treatment disorder, a complication of the stroke – spoke openly about its fight against depression and urged people to obtain help.
In November, he told the host of Podcast Joe Rogan that he had recovered and pushed the thoughts to injure himself.
“I was in the point where I was really, you know, in a very dark place. And I stayed in this match and I am in front of you right now and I had this conversation,” said Fetterman.
But some who have worked closely with Fetterman wonder if his recovery is over.
In the 2024 letter to Dr. David Williamson, Jentleson warned that Fetterman did not see his doctors, had pushed people who were supposed to help him stay on his recovery plan and who may not take his prescribed drugs. Jentleson also said that Fetterman had led to reckless manner and showed paranoia, the insulation of colleagues.
“Overall, in the past nine months, John has dismantled the early alert system that we have all agreed during his release,” wrote Jentleson. “He chose fights with each person involved in this system and used these fights as an apology to push and cut them with any knowledge of his health situation.”
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Williamson works, refused to make him available for an interview, citing laws on confidentiality and confidentiality protecting medical information from patients.
A lone wolf in the Senate
Fetterman has long been a joker In the political field, forging a career largely by itself, regardless of the Democratic Party.
As mayor of a small town in Braddock, the Fetterman Plainspoken has become a minor celebrity for his progressive policy with the bare arc, his appearance – he has 6 feet 8 inch and tattooed with a shaved head – and his unconventional efforts to put the old city of steel depressed on the map.
He approved the insurgent democrat Bernie Sanders In 2016, the presidential primary and ran from the left against the Democrat supported by the 2016 Senate in the primary of the Senate. In 2020, when he was a lieutenant-governor, he became a main substitute in cable news emissions for the presidential candidacy of Joe Biden and gathered a national political follow-up which made him a strong collection of small dollar funds.
Elected in the Senate in 2022, he made waves with his casual dress – Hoodie and gym shorts – at work and formal events and its desire to chastise other democrats.
Fetterman returned to the Senate after his hospitalization in 2023, a much more outgoing legislator, frequently joking with his senior colleagues and joining journalists in the corridors with the help of an iPad or an iPhone that transcribes conversations in real time.
However, two years later, Fetterman is still a lonely in the Senate.
He separated from many of his democratic colleagues on Israeli politics and sometimes argued that his party needed to work with, not against, Trump. He met Trump and Trump's candidates – and voted for some – When other Democrats would not do it.
He firmly resisted himself to the Democrats in other cases and criticized Trump on certain questions, such as trade and food aid.
A particularly striking fetterman video of the head emerged earlier this year in which he was in flight for Pittsburgh apparently competing for a pilot on his seat belt.
Despite the repercussions with the progressives on his agitated support in Israel in his war in Gaza, Fetterman was still a personality on demand last year to campaign in the state of Pennsylvania Battleground for Biden and, after Biden abandoned her re-election offer, vice-president Kamala Harris.
Since Trump won the November – and Pennsylvania elections – things have changed. Many unique supporters have turned on Fetterman on his softer approach to Trump and his willingness to criticize democratic colleagues for having increased the ringtones.
However, he brought Fetterman applause.
Bill Maher, animator of the political talk show “in real time with Bill Maher”, suggested that Fetterman should present themselves to the presidency in 2028. The conservatives – who had long made Fetterman a target for his progressive policy – appeared towards the defense of Fetterman.
However, the Democrats in Pennsylvania say they hear people worried about him.
“People are concerned about his health,” said Sharif Street, president of the State Democratic Party. “They want to make sure he's going well. People care about him. There is a lot of love for him there. ”
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The journalist of Associated Press Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington contributed to this report. Follow Marc Levy on x to https://x.com/timelywriter.
