Capitol Betrayal: Democratic Knives Out for John Fetterman

Capitol Betrayal: Democratic Knives Out for John Fetterman

Ditching his signature black hoodie and shorts for a dark gray suit on Jan. 3, 2023, John Fetterman was sworn in as the junior senator from Pennsylvania. Video recorded at the event showed the newly minted senator frequently looking to his ambitious wife, Gisele, for direction.

Fetterman doesn’t even know what planet he’s on 🤣 pic.twitter.com/WNQrWLoqJn

— Hodgetwins (@hodgetwins) January 3, 2023

No one was truly surprised by his condition. Fetterman had not fully recovered from the near-fatal stroke he’d suffered the previous May, in the middle of a bruising Senate campaign against Republican Dr. Mehmet Oz. Throughout the race, he had struggled with speech and auditory processing. By most measures, he should have withdrawn. But between his power-hungry wife, Gisele, and a Democratic Party desperate to flip the previously Republican seat, there was no turning back. If they could put Joe Biden in the White House, they could pull Fetterman over the finish line in a Senate race.

Knowing Fetterman was in no shape for a debate, his campaign tried desperately to avoid one. Running out of excuses, Fetterman’s team finally agreed to a debate two weeks before the election. By that time, many voters had already cast their ballots.

As you may recall, his performance was every bit as disastrous as they had feared. From the moment he uttered his first words during the debate — “Hi. Good night, everybody.” — the jig was up.

In case you’ve forgotten just how poorly the debate went for Fetterman, Fox News’s Jesse Watters shared the highlights in the video below.

Stunningly, Fetterman’s inability to communicate didn’t matter to Pennsylvania Democrats. Despite his condition, money poured into his campaign’s coffers immediately afterward. And against all odds, Fetterman won the race.

Although he was hospitalized for six weeks with depression in February and March 2023, he returned to the Senate and gradually recovered from the effects of his stroke.

He also began to break with his party on key issues. Most notably, he has been an outspoken supporter of Israel in its fight against Hamas. During the transition, he became the first Senate Democrat to meet with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago. He was the only Democrat to vote in favor of Pam Bondi’s confirmation as attorney general.

Fetterman’s failure to toe the party line put a target on his back. And on Friday, New York Magazine’s Intelligencer fired the first shot with a lengthy exposé titled All by Himself. It begins: “John Fetterman insists he is in good health. But staffers past and present say they no longer recognize the man they once knew.”

It was a hit piece for the ages, a Capitol Hill version of Mean Girls. In a deep dive into Fetterman’s current mental and emotional state, author Ben Terris drew a portrait of a madman. Using conversations with his former and current aides, Terris portrayed the senator as unhinged, desperate, and failing.

John Fetterman insists he is in good health. But staffers past and present say they no longer recognize the man they once knew. https://t.co/XGXi69qYcZ

— New York Magazine (@NYMag) May 2, 2025

Much of it felt overly intrusive, as if it crossed a line into what should remain private.

Aside from a brief interview with Fetterman himself, the piece relied entirely on second-hand perspectives. Clearly intended to stop any other Democrats from wandering off the reservation, it came across as unbalanced, a coordinated airing of grievances by aides who don’t like him very much.

“Former and current staffers paint a picture of an erratic senator who has become almost impossible to work for and whose mental-health situation is more serious and complicated than previously reported,” Terris wrote.

The story begins with a 1600-word email to Fetterman’s doctor from his then-chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, in May 2024, in which he laid out in excruciating detail what was going on with the senator. “I think John is on a bad trajectory and I’m really worried about him,” Jentleson noted. If it continued, he worried that Fetterman “won’t be with us for much longer.”

Here are some excerpts:

He eats fast food multiple times a day.

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.

Every person who was supposed to help him stay on his recovery plan has been pushed out.

According to Terris, Jentleson claimed Fetterman was “avoiding the regular checkups advised by his doctors and was preoccupied with the social-media platform X, which he’d previously admitted had been a major ‘accelerant’ of his depression. He drove his car so ‘recklessly’ that staff refused to ride with him. He had also bought a gun. … Fetterman was isolated, had ‘damaged personal relationships,’ and was shedding staff.”

Jentleson told Terris that his issues with Fetterman are, “by and large, not political but rather an expression of genuine worry for Fetterman’s well-being.”

Not buying it. Jentleson once worked for former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and Fetterman’s inexplicable support for Israel was high on the list of grievances he shared with the doctor.

Fetterman’s position on the Israeli-Hamas war came up frequently in the piece. When calls for a ceasefire began, Fetterman wrote on X, “Now is not the time to talk about a cease-fire. We must support Israel in efforts to eliminate the Hamas terrorists who slaughtered innocent men, women, and children.”

The article cites a “heated” argument between Fetterman and his wife (in November 2023), whom Terris describes as “a kindhearted philanthropist,” over his support for Israel. According to a staffer who was present at the time, Gisele, “with tears in her eyes,” said, “They are bombing refugee camps. How can you support this?”

Fetterman reportedly replied, “That’s all propaganda.”

Terris spoke briefly to Fetterman in April. When Terris raised his staffers’ concerns to the senator, “he denied anything was amiss,” said “he felt like the ‘best version’ of himself,” and asked, “Why is this a story?”

Terris wrote:

Many of the staffers I spoke with are angry. They are troubled. And they are sad. These were some of Fetterman’s truest believers, and they now question his fitness to be a senator. They worry he may present a risk to the Democratic Party and maybe even to himself.

Fox News reported that social media “became abuzz after the article dropped.” They cited Bloomberg writer Matthew Yglesias, who called it “a very sad story here on a human level, but of course, it’s also politics and can’t be addressed purely on that level.”

Former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan concluded the story “makes clear that Fetterman should not be serving in the Senate. Every Senate Democrat should read this and be asked about it.”

Republicans, however, see the story quite differently. This is what happens to Democrats who don’t tow the party line.

Read the whole story here.

Also in today's Morning Jolt… back when Fetterman could barely speak during the 2022 debate, New York magazine reported his medical condition was no big deal, and certainly not a reason to keep him out of elected office. But now that he’s speaking more clearly, but taking… pic.twitter.com/kUbwExHJgr

— Jim Geraghty (@jimgeraghty) May 2, 2025

Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn or X.

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