Staffers of Senator John Fetterman have sounded the alarm over the Pennsylvania lawmaker’s health and increased isolation as he navigates Washington D.C.
Fetterman’s health battle has been documented at length since he suffered a stroke while running for the Senate in 2022. The stroke left him with auditory processing issues for which he still uses technology to transcribe what people are saying to help him communicate in real time.
In early 2023, he spent six weeks at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center where he was treated for depression just weeks after being sworn into office.
But a feature in New York Magazine has shed new light on the 55-year-old Democrat as former and current aides shared an inside look at what they’ve perceived as red flags with their boss’ mental state and erratic, even manic, behavior.
Some of the staffers, who were described as “his truest believers” are now questioning his fitness to be a senator. The article said they worry not just about him being a risk to the Democratic Party and also himself.
In an interview for the story, the senator labeled them as disgruntled employees and dismissed health concerns.
However, the lengthy article described aides avoiding dealing directly with their boss as he exhibited mood swings and moments of paranoia. There were also efforts to get him medical help amid fears he had gone off medications.
Fetterman’s behavior was so concerning that his former chief of staff Adam Jentleson wrote a letter to the medical director of the traumatic-brain-injury and neuropsychiatry unit at Walter Reed in May 2024.
“I think John is on a bad trajectory and I’m really worried about him,” he wrote in a 1,600 word email. Jentleson raised concerns that if things did not change, the senator “won’t be with us for much longer.”
“We do not know if he is taking his meds and his behavior frequently suggests he is not,” he included in the email that described “conspiratorial thinking; megalomania… high highs and low lows; long, rambling, repetitive and self centered monologues; lying in ways that are painfully, awkwardly obvious to everyone in the room.”
Jentleson wrote Fetterman had damaged personal relationships and pushed people out. He even raised concerns over the senator buying a gun, which the senator claimed was for protection.
The former top staffer told New York Magazine that he does not largely disagree with Fetterman politically but was concerned about him and hoped he could correct course for his own well-being.
The high turnover in Fetterman’s office since he was elected has been long-reported. He’s lost his chief of staff, top communications officers and legislative director.
There have also been public disagreements with staff and fellow Democrats over policy, especially Fetterman’s unwavering support for Israel since the Oct. 7 attack and a visit to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Donald Trump.
But what his staff was dealing with behind closed doors was lesser known.
A staffer said soon after Fetterman was sworn in, he received a text message from someone with Fetterman at a retreat asking if the senator was ok. There was a report that Fetterman had walked into the road and was nearly hit by a car. Soon after, he was found wandering Capitol Hill and staffers worried he’d had another stroke. He was taken to George Washington University Hospital where in the end he was treated for severe dehydration.
Soon after a meeting with then-fellow Senator Sherrod Brown in February where Fetterman’s behavior was described as “catatonic,” staff got in touch with the Senate physician over his concerning behavior and it was decided he needed to go to Walter Reed where he was treated for six weeks.
With medications and a treatment plan in place, Fetterman appeared to improve, but the senator began to withdraw again as he fought with staff over Israel, which “coincided with setbacks in his recovery regimen.”
According to New York Magazine, he hadn’t gotten his blood drawn in months despite it being a crucial part of his health regime, and a staffer said the Senate physician called to say Fetterman was “acting bizarrely” and nearly bowled over a group of people in the final weeks of 2023.
Among those who Fetterman has clashed with is his wife Gisele Barreto Fetterman, staff revealed. Gisele played a prominent role during his campaign, but Fetterman got into a heated argument with her over his response to Israel.
Just weeks after the Oct. 7 attack, a staffer recalled her saying “They are bombing refugee camps. How can you support this?” Fetterman replied: “That’s all propaganda.”
She later pulled a staffer aside to ask if his team was pushing Fetterman’s stances for political reasons, but the staffer refuted that and said they were as upset as her. She responded that if they were pushing back “there’s no hope.”
Days later she texted another staffer that she was at a “breaking point.”
A former staffer also recalled overhearing Gisele on speakerphone that December saying to Fetterman: “Who did I marry? Where is the man I married?”
Jentleson said it was hard to tell if the senator was “acting crazy” or if his staff was “overreacting” but senior staff in a March 2024 group text used “manic” to describe his behavior. Another top aide Rebecca Katz described him as “meaner.” She quit a few weeks later.
That May, Jentleson, then an adviser, wrote that Fetterman was engaging in “risky” behavior including reckless driving where he would read and FaceTime while going fast. Fetterman was in a car accident less than a month later after flying back on a red-eye from Los Angeles. Both cars were totaled.
A staffer recalled a call from Fetterman on the side of the road in which the officer on the scene said it was a “miracle no one died.”
In the halls of Capitol Hill, Fetterman in his signature hoodie and shorts sometimes engages with reporters about the news of the day and where he stands on policy. Other times he ignores the questions thrown his way.
He dismissed the turnover in his office to New York Magazine as typical of Washington D.C. During a sit down interview in his office, Fetterman said his health was better than ever and declined to comment on former staffers that said they were worried.
He also said no one on his staff would know about his personal health and anyone suggesting otherwise was misinformed and later that it was “disgruntled employees” who were saying things that were “untrue.”
In a statement for the article, his wife Gisele suggested it was Jentleson trying to hurt her husband’s reputation by feeding her “scary, untrue stories about John’s health.”
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