Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is responding to reports citing anonymous sources that he is behaving erratically, missing medical appointments, and driving recklessly, saying that such assertions are an invasion of his privacy.
“My doctors are like, ‘John is great,’” he said.
“And why are people talking about anyone’s personal medical things? It’s that, you know, I think most people would agree that’s really, really invasive.”
Fetterman said the report “involved maybe two or three anonymous disgruntled staffers,” saying “false things.”
“My doctors have confirmed that that is not the case,” he said of the allegations about his behavior, adding that he is following a strict protocol prescribed by his doctors.
Not long after becoming a senator, Fetterman checked himself into the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for treatment of clinical depression.
“I’ve been very front and center about my ... depression, absolutely none of these other things, and it’s like so someone that was trying to accumulate my medical records and leak those things that’s part of this weird grudge for this hit piece,” Fetterman told CNN, in an apparent reference to his former chief of staff, Adam Jentleson.
“If you’re really concerned about someone, you could say, ‘Hey, let’s sit down. Can we talk?’ It’s not ... like going to the media.”
The magazine quoted Jentleson as saying: “We do not know if he is taking his meds, and his behavior frequently suggests he is not.
“We often see the kind of warning signs we discussed: conspiratorial thinking; megalomania (for example, he claims to be the most knowledgeable source on Israel and Gaza around but his sources are just what he reads in the news—he declines most briefings and never reads memos); 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, such as swearing up and down that he didn’t say something everyone heard him say a few minutes prior.”
In 2024, Maryland state police faulted Fetterman in a car accident on Interstate 70. And earlier that year, the Democratic senator pleaded guilty in Pennsylvania to a citation for exceeding the speed limit by 34 mph, according to court records.
Fetterman, 54, suffered a stroke in May 2022 as he was campaigning in the midterm elections.
When asked in the CNN interview about whether he is running for office again, Fetterman said, “We’re not talking about ‘28,” adding, “Who knows what’s going to happen in ‘28.”
The Epoch Times has contacted Fetterman’s office and Jentleson’s email account for comment.
