Sen. John Fetterman raises alarms with outburst at meeting with union
officials, AP sources say
[May 08, 2025]
By MARC LEVY
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania
was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his
home state when things quickly devolved.
Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning
why “everybody is mad at me,” “why does everyone hate me, what did I
ever do” and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who
was briefed on what occurred.
As the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end it and ushered
the visitors into the hallway, where she broke down crying. The staffer
was comforted by the teachers who were themselves rattled by Fetterman's
behavior, according to a second person who was briefed separately on the
meeting.
The interaction at Fetterman's Washington office, described to The
Associated Press by the two people who spoke about it on the condition
of anonymity, came the day before New York Magazine published a story in
which former staff and political advisers to Fetterman aired concerns
about the senator's mental health.
That story included a 2024 letter, also obtained by the AP, in which
Fetterman's one-time chief of staff Adam Jentleson told a
neuropsychiatrist who had treated Fetterman for depression that the
senator appeared to be off his recovery plan and was exhibiting alarming
behavior, including a tendency toward “long, rambling, repetitive and
self-centered monologues.”
Asked about the meeting with teachers union representatives, Fetterman
said in a statement through his office that they “had a spirited
conversation about our collective frustration with the Trump
administration’s cuts to our education system.” He also said he "will
always support our teachers, and I will always reject anyone’s attempt
to turn Pennsylvania’s public schools into a voucher program.”
Fetterman earlier this week brushed off the New York Magazine story as a
“one-source hit piece and some anonymous sources, so there’s nothing
new.” Asked by a reporter in a Senate corridor what he would say to
people who are concerned about him, Fetterman said: “They’re not.
They’re actually not concerned. It’s a hit piece. There’s no news.”
Reached by telephone, Aaron Chapin, the president of the Pennsylvania
State Education Association who was in the meeting with Fetterman, said
he didn’t want to discuss what was a private conversation.
Surviving a stroke, battling depression
The teachers union encounter adds to the questions being raised about
Fetterman's mental health and behavior barely three years after a he
survived a stroke on the 2022 campaign trail that he said almost killed
him. That was followed by a bout with depression that landed him in
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for six weeks, barely a
month after he was sworn into the Senate.
The scrutiny also comes a time when Fetterman, now serving third year of
his term, is being criticized by many rank-and-file Democrats in his
home state for being willing to cooperate with President Donald Trump,
amid Democrats' growing alarm over Trump's actions and agenda.
Fetterman — who has been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy, in which the
heart muscle becomes weakened and enlarged, and auditory processing
disorder, a complication from the stroke — has talked openly about his
struggle with depression and urged people to get help.
In November, he told podcast host Joe Rogan that he had recovered and
fended off thoughts of harming himself.
“I was at the point where I was really, you know, in a very dark place.
And I stayed in that game and I am staying in front of you right now and
having this conversation,” Fetterman said.
But some who have worked closely with Fetterman question whether his
recovery is complete.
In the 2024 letter to Dr. David Williamson, Jentleson warned that
Fetterman was not seeing his doctors, had pushed out the people who were
supposed to help him stay on his recovery plan and might not be taking
his prescribed medications. Jentleson also said Fetterman had been
driving recklessly and exhibiting paranoia, isolating him from
colleagues.
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Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., speaks to a reporter near the Senate
chamber at the Capitol in Washington, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben
Curtis, File)
“Overall, over the last nine months or so, John has dismantled the
early-warning system we all agreed upon when he was released,”
Jentleson wrote. “He has picked fights with each person involved in
that system and used those fights as excuses to push them out and
cut them off from any knowledge about his health situation.”
Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where Williamson
works, declined to make him available for an interview, citing
privacy and confidentiality laws protecting patient medical
information.
A lone wolf in the Senate
Fetterman has long been a wild card in the political realm, forging
a career largely on his own, independently from the Democratic
Party.
As a small-town mayor in Braddock, the plainspoken Fetterman became
a minor celebrity for his bare-knuckled progressive politics, his
looks — he’s 6-foot-8 and tattooed with a shaved head — and his
unconventional efforts to put the depressed former steel town back
on the map.
He endorsed the insurgent Democrat Bernie Sanders in 2016’s
presidential primary and ran from the left against the party-backed
Democrat in 2016’s Senate primary. In 2020, when he was lieutenant
governor, he became a top surrogate on cable TV news shows for Joe
Biden's presidential bid and gathered a national political following
that made him a strong small-dollar fundraiser.
Elected to the Senate in 2022, he has made waves with his casual
dress — hoodies and gym shorts — at work and at formal events and
his willingness to chastise other Democrats.
Fetterman returned to the Senate after his hospitalization in 2023 a
much more outgoing lawmaker, frequently joking with his fellow
senators and engaging with reporters in the hallways with the
assistance of an iPad or iPhone that transcribes conversations in
real time.
Yet two years later, Fetterman is still something of a loner in the
Senate.
He has separated himself from many of his fellow Democrats on Israel
policy and argued at times that his party needs to work with, not
against, Trump. He met with Trump and Trump’s nominees — and voted
for some — when other Democrats wouldn't.
He has stood firmly with Democrats in other cases and criticized
Trump on some issues, such as trade and food aid.
One particularly head-scratching video of Fetterman emerged earlier
this year in which he was on a flight to Pittsburgh apparently
arguing with a pilot over his seatbelt.
Despite fallout with progressives over his staunch support of Israel
in its war in Gaza, Fetterman was still an in-demand personality
last year to campaign in the battleground state of Pennsylvania for
Biden and, after Biden dropped his reelection bid, Vice President
Kamala Harris.
Since Trump won November's election — and Pennsylvania — things have
changed. Many one-time supporters have turned on Fetterman over his
softer approach to Trump and his willingness to criticize fellow
Democrats for raising alarm bells.
It nevertheless brought Fetterman plaudits.
Bill Maher, host of the political talk show “Real Time with Bill
Maher," suggested that Fetterman should run for president in 2028.
Conservatives — who had long made Fetterman a target for his
progressive politics — have sprung to Fetterman’s defense.
Still, Democrats in Pennsylvania say they are hearing from people
worried about him.
“People are concerned about his health," said Sharif Street, the
state's Democratic Party chairman. “They want to make sure he’s OK.
People care about him. There’s a lot of love for him out there.”
___
Associated Press reporter Mary Clare Jalonick in Washington
contributed to this report.
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