Newly-elected Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) checked himself into the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to receive treatment for clinical depression. This comes just days after fears that Fetterman suffered a second stroke, as he reported feeling lightheaded. Fetterman also suffered a stroke while on the campaign trail last year. In a statement on Thursday, Fetterman’s chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, said, “While John has experienced depression off and on throughout his life, it only became severe in recent weeks.” Signs that Fetterman was struggling with the recovery from his stroke were apparent on the campaign trail, specifically on a disastrous interview with NBC Nightly News and in a debate with his opponent, Dr. Mehmet Oz. Fetterman still narrowly won the election and is set to serve in the United States Senate until at least 2028.
BREITBART: John Fetterman Checks Himself into Hospital for ‘Clinical Depression’
By Jacob Bliss; February 16, 2023
Just days after being hospitalized for feeling “lightheaded,” newly minted Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) checked himself into the hospital to receive treatment for “clinical depression,” according to his chief of staff.
Fetterman’s chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, said in a statement on Thursday:
Last night, Senator John Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to receive treatment for clinical depression. While John has experienced depression off and on throughout his life, it only became severe in recent weeks…On Monday, John was evaluated by Dr. Brian P. Monahan … Monahan recommended inpatient care at Walter Reed. John agreed, and he is receiving treatment on a voluntary basis… After examining John, the doctors at Walter Reed told us that John is getting the care he needs. [Emphasis added.]
This follows the senator being hospitalized last week after he “began feeling lightheaded.” At the time, Fetterman’s communication director, Joe Cavello, said that “initial tests did not show evidence of a new stroke” but that more tests would be run.
The senator’s wife, Gisele Fetterman, said in pair of tweets on Thursday, following the news of her husband, “After what he’s been through in the past year, there’s probably no one who wanted to talk about his own health less than John.”
“I’m so proud of him for asking for help and getting the care he needs,” she added, asking everyone to please respect their family’s privacy during the “difficult time.”
On the campaign trail, the senator suffered a stroke before clinching the Democrat nomination for the U.S. Senate seat in Pennsylvania. However, as Breitbart News previously noted:
Fetterman [on the campaign trail] routinely appeared disoriented in public appearances throughout the campaign, regularly mispronouncing words and confusing sentences. After a disastrous interview with NBC Nightly News, reporter Dasha Burns drew criticism for noting how Fetterman’s stroke impaired him in a variety of ways, from his comprehension to his basic speech, to the point of him needing a closed captioning system during their in-person interview.
“Fetterman’s campaign required closed captioning technology for this interview to essentially read our questions as we asked them,” she told fellow reporter Lester Holt. “In small talk before the interview, without captioning, it wasn’t clear he was understanding our conversation.”
He went on to win the election against his Republican opponent, Mehmet Oz, in November, despite his poor debate performance.
Photo: AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite