Senator John Fetterman took part in a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Tuesday and videos of his rambling, incoherent performance should be concerning to everyone who watches.
Fetterman returned to the Senate last month following a six-week stay in the hospital where he was treated for clinical depression. Prior to his election, he experienced a stroke which left him unable to understand words and meanings, or even to express the same.
His struggles are clearly persisting.
“Is it staggering — isn’t it staggering responsibility — that the head of a bank could literally, could literally crash our economy. It’s astonishing,” Fetterman said.
“That’s like if you have — I mean like — and they also realizes that — that now they have — it’s in — they guaranteed a guaranteed way to be saved by … [unintelligible] … how?”
John Fetterman participates in a Senate Banking Committee hearing with the former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank. pic.twitter.com/uKILMfuilN
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 16, 2023
RELATED: Senator John Fetterman Just Chaired His First Senate Hearing: Here’s How Badly He Struggled
John Fetterman Struggles Through Incoherent Speech at Hearing
The media isn’t doing John Fetterman any favors after his disastrous hearing performance. Washington Post White House economics reporter Jeff Stein completely altered a quote by Fetterman from the same hearing.
“Shouldn’t you have a working requirement after we bail out your bank? Republicans seem to be more preoccupied with SNAP requirements for hungry people than protecting taxpayers that have to bail out these banks,'” Stein quoted Fetterman.
In reality, here’s what he actually said:
Shouldn’t you have a working requirement after we sale your bank with billions of your bank? Because they seem to be more preoccupied, uh when then snap, uh and requirements for works for hungry people, but not about protecting the tax – the tax papers.
We took the liberty of running that through a text comparison program and the Washington Post reporter’s quote only matched the actual quote at a 22% rate.
Stein quietly deleted the tweet after being called out by multiple people on social media. But the fake quote was already out there, published in Fortune magazine and Yahoo Finance.
The actual transcript is something. Have to commend Jeff on the absolute work of art it is to have cleaned up Fetterman’s comments into something resembling English.
“Works for hungry people.”
“Tax papers.”https://t.co/LqMYwV3v3U pic.twitter.com/5GE92dz26O
— Rusty ?️ (@rustyweiss74) May 17, 2023
Later in the hearing, Fetterman again seemingly attacked banks for getting bailed out.
“It’s astonishing. That’s like if you have, I mean like, and they also realize is that now they have … a guaranteed way to be saved by, again, by no matter, by how?” Fetterman said.
“Isn’t it appropriate that this kind of control should be more stricter to prevent this kind of thing from going, or should we go on start bailing and sailing whoever bank regardless of how … their conduct is?”
Nobody answered.
RELATED: What a Dope: John Fetterman Tweets Image Holding 4/20 Flag, Celebrating Marijuana Holiday
Things Aren’t Getting Better For Fetterman
Last month, Fetterman chaired his first Senate subcommittee hearing focused on the benefits of food stamps. Quotes from that performance were equally incoherent.
“Americans like Jer… about [???] from the (nath?), to the town of Northeast in Pennsylvania, tells me that his victim was skimming, which was somebody stole money and he relied from his SNAP EBT,” Fetterman opined.
John Fetterman chaired a subcommittee hearing today.
Here is his opening statement. pic.twitter.com/Y6EHYkhkBZ
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) April 19, 2023
The New York Times printed a report in February describing how Senate colleagues have had to adjust to the Pennsylvania congressman’s “special needs.”
Auditory issues since his stroke have caused Fetterman to hear voices that sound like the teacher in the “Peanuts” cartoons. He needs special monitors and tablets to understand basic conversation.
Fetterman opens the debate:
“Hi. Good night everybody.” pic.twitter.com/mg0X3Iwf5D
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 26, 2022
But these clips from the hearings show Fetterman isn’t just struggling with hearing people. He can’t speak. He can’t maintain clear thoughts.
And Democrats, the media, and even his own family continuing to turn a blind eye to it just to hold onto a Senate seat are doing him a terrible disservice.
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