Senator John Fetterman, D-P. Tuesday, rejected the concerns that a former member of high-level staff raised about his mental health when he managed depression and awarded a stroke that he suffered during his Senate campaign in 2022.
In a letter obtained by NBC News, dated May 2024 and addressed to Dr. David Williamson, the neuropsychiatrist of the Fetterman at the Walter Reed Medical Center, Adam Jentleson, the former senator’s staff chief, wrote that his boss was “on a bad trajectory”.
“John frequently presents the kind of alarming behavior that you told us to monitor when he was released (and continued to do so since our last word in December),” wrote Jentleson. “But the main thing I want to raise with you is that John seems to be out of his recovery plan – at least especially, and perhaps entirely.”
New York magazine last week was the first to report on the letter from Jentleson, who was chief of staff from Fetterman from January 2023 to April 2024, then until June 2024 as main advisor.
Fetterman rejected Jentleson’s letter and the New York Magazine article, which also included concerns concerning the well-being of the other members of the current and anonymous staff.
“This is a story of a source, with some anonymous sources, a successful piece of a very left publication. There is really nothing to say,” Fetterman told NBC News on Tuesday.
Fetterman was hospitalized for depression in February 2023 for six weeks. One of the main concerns raised by Jentleson in his letter was whether Fetterman followed his recovery plan correctly after being released from Walter Reed.
“We do not know if he takes his medication and that his behavior frequently suggests that he is not,” wrote Jentleson in Williamson, who supervised Fetterman’s care during his hospitalization. (We do not know which medication Jentleson was referring.))
“We often see the kind of warning signs that we have discussed: conspiracy thought; Megalomania (for example, he claims to be the most competent source on Israel and Gaza, but his sources are exactly what he reads in the news, he refuses most of the room, as swearing from top to bottom, he did not say something that everyone heard him say a few minutes before, “said Jentleson.
Asked about his message to people who express concerns about his condition, Fetterman told journalists on Tuesday: “They are not, they are in fact worried, it is a successful piece.”
Asked about the question that Jentleton raised on taking medication, Fetterman refused to answer, but said: “Again, a piece of blows, anonymous sources, unhappy employees.”
“I want to say that I said and I hope he will get the help he needs,” Jentleson said on Tuesday.
Fetterman was opened on his difficulties with depression after his stroke, telling the moderator of “meeting the press”, Kristen Welker, in an interview in 2023, “people hear their whole life on” I can’t get out of bed “, and you really can’t understand what it really means. You cannot get out of bed as long as it happens to you.
“And I scared my children, and they were confused,” he added. “And, of course, my wife was worried, and I think she understands better than children.”
Fetterman’s democratic colleagues supported him.
“He does a good job and he is a good legislator,” the head of the Senate minority, Chuck Schumer, Dn.y. told NBC News.
Senator Peter Welch, D-VT., Said he had dinner with Fetterman and Senator Katie Britt, R-Ala., Two weeks ago. He said that Fetterman “was going quite well”, describing him as “a special talent in our group” who “has a way to speak to everyday people who really connect.”
“Now he has experienced an incredible health event, and it takes continuous care,” Welch told NBC News. “I have no knowledge of it, but you don’t have to know much to know that it is a permanent challenge, and I want to be there to support it as much as possible.”
