Let me say at the beginning, Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman deserves very little of the blame for what happened last night on the debate stage with Republican candidate Mehmet Oz. Fetterman is clearly incapacitated and not capable of making decisions. The blame for the train wreck last night in Philadelphia rests squarely on his wife, Gisele Fetterman, and the cabal of Democratic consultants who have continued to push him forward as someone capable of holding the office of U.S. Senate. They have exploited Fetterman out of a craven lust for power.
For those of you who haven’t been following the race, National Review’s Jim Geraghty offers a Twitter thread with a helpful timeline. But here’s the gist: John Fetterman had a stroke on May 13, just days before the Democratic primary began in Pennsylvania. Two days later, he acknowledged the stroke publicly but said he was on his way to a full recovery with no cognitive damage. Hours before polls closed on primary day, Fetterman’s consultants issued a statement disclosing that he was going under the knife for surgery. On election night, Gisele Fetterman said the ordeal was but a “little hiccup.”
After winning the primary election, Fetterman’s wife and his political consultants have continued to obfuscate and spin around his condition, cynically hoping to bunker down and wait out the election. Throughout the ordeal, his consultants have released letters from doctors claiming that he is medically fine, including one letter which came from a top campaign donor. When politically convenient, they would call Fetterman’s condition “life threatening” and suggest that anyone criticizing him was engaging in “ableist” attacks. The campaign has also smeared any journalists who questioned Fetterman’s fitness for office.
Which brings us to last night’s debate. Have a look at some of these clips and decide for yourself whether Fetterman’s stroke in May was just “a little hiccup.” In a serious country, every single person involved in the decision to put him on that stage last night would resign in disgrace and never work in politics again. Keep in mind, polls suggest this is going to be a very close race and, thanks to Pennsylvania’s early voting laws, tens of thousands of Pennsylvanians may have cast their ballots before getting a chance to see the Fetterman campaign’s lies exposed. What a sad, sorry indictment of American politics.