John Fetterman

Ben Curtis/AP

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said Saturday he has begun attending more Senate hearings and votes now not out of a renewed dedication to his job, however since the media “weaponized” his absences and psychological health struggles.

In an interview with The New York Occasions revealed Saturday morning, Fetterman expressed frustration with what he described as a media-driven narrative that he’s not fit to serve.

He acknowledged lacking a large number of Senate tasks over the last 12 months, including committee hearings and procedural votes, and said he does now not in finding aspects of his job to be significant.

“I’m showing up as a result of people within the media have weaponized [my attendance],” Fetterman told Occasions reporter Annie Karni. “Easy things are became. That’s exactly what came about.”

He also commented on contemporary studies that he has been erratic considering the fact that being elected to the Senate in 2022. He told Karni he’s now 2d-guessing his choice to be open about his mental health struggles.

In 2023, Fetterman was vocal after his six-week stay at Walter Reed National Armed forces Clinical Center, the place he used to be handled for depression following a stroke.

“It shook me that people are willing to weaponize that I received assist,” he stated Saturday.

Fetterman mentioned that below latest scrutiny, he is displaying up to work more but known as his presence “performative.”

Karni reported, “Instead, he stated he used to be ‘displaying up as a result of people in the media have weaponized’ his absenteeism on Capitol Hill to portray him as mentally unfit, when in fact it’s a made from a choice to spend more time at house and not more on the mundane tasks of being a senator.”

Fetterman mentioned of his attendance, “The votes I missed had been overwhelmingly procedural; they’re even known as ‘bed check’ votes… I needed to decide: getting right here and sticking my thumb in the door for 3 seconds for a procedural vote or spend Monday evening as a dad-daughter date.”

The Pennsylvania Democrat also compared hypothesis about his mental state to sports media hypothesis about legendary former NFL coach Bill Belichick and his a lot-youthful lady friend Jordon Hudson.

“This turned into the Belichick girlfriend story of politics,” he said. “It simply retains going and going.”

Prior this month, sources mentioned to be with reference to Fetterman advised Intelligencer the senator’s conduct was once from time to time jarring. In February 2023, Fetterman reportedly walked into site visitors near the Library of Congress and was once nearly hit through a automobile. He was due to this fact hospitalized for dehydration.

In one excerpt of the document, the outlet’s Ben Terris pronounced, “One staffer informed me there can be whole days when they couldn’t let anyone outdoor the place of job be round him because he was in ‘some form of state’ and may say ‘actually fucked-up shit to constituents.’”

The put up Fetterman Complains Media Shamed Him Into Displaying Up For Senate Responsibilities first appeared on Mediaite.