All By Himself: John Fetterman insists he is in good health. But staffers past and present say they no longer recognize

[Mike 03]

11. Thanks for posting. Wow... This is a serious, somber feature analysis.

More seems to be going on than many of us even suspected. For the most part, I'd withheld judgement on his political oscillations, theorizing it had some positive purpose for Pennsylvania, and pending new information (like this). It's really important for everyone concerned that the senator receive any help he needs. And thanks to the staffers who care enough to reluctantly open up about this.

One staffer told me there would be entire days when they couldn’t let anyone outside the office be around him because he was in “some sort of state” and might say “really fucked-up shit to constituents.” Sometimes he would just “shut down,” according to one former staffer. He was saying “unhinged shit,” according to one text, and spending more time on social media. Stern wrote to the group that it seemed to him like Fetterman was “spiraling” and that his constant “doomscrolling” — “I think he’s on essentially all day now?” — would only make things worse. “It’s self sabotage,” Katz texted. “Him against the world is his comfortable place.” Another staffer chimed in to say the boss had picked a fight in the Senate cloakroom when an attendant wouldn’t let him bring a friend in. “He said something to the effect of, ‘you let all these imbeciles in here but you won’t let me bring in my friend?’”.