After being released from Walter Reed National Military Medical Center this week once his treatment for depression was completed, Democrat Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman sat down for a softball interview with liberal CBS Sunday Morning anchor Jane Pauley. Despite there being plenty of substantive topics to discuss, Pauley opted for the most syrupy topics and open-ended questions possible. She even asked with a straight face if the brain-damaged Senator would be open to serv[ing] "beyond the United States Senate."
Pauley opened by gushing all over Fetterman by putting a happy face on his health and life outlook: "Senator John Fetterman is home in Braddock, Pennsylvania, six weeks after he was hospitalized for depression at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center where we talked with him this past week. I found Senator Fetterman hopeful, optimistic, ready to return to the United States Senate and his role as a dad." You knew this wouldn't end up being a serious interview once that sentence was uttered by Pauley. It would be a complete puffball interview.
Those who came away with that obvious conclusion were right as Pauley drew attention to Fetterman's blue-collar roots and proclaimed him to be a "darling of the fashion world":
A former steel town outside Pittsburgh, Braddock put him on the map, and vice versa. Population less than 2,000 with high unemployment, low income, and a towering mayor with a Harvard degree and a penchant for hoodies and shorts, he was becoming a rising political star and an unlikely darling of the fashion world.
Joined in now with Fetterman and his wife and reportedly shadow Senator Gisele Fetterman, the following discussion about his grotesque clothing style took place:
GISELE FETTERMAN: What did GQ call you? They said you were a fashion God or something?
PAULEY: His wife of 15 years, Gisele.
JOHN FETTERMAN: American taste God. Then The New York Times I found out that I was one of the most fashionable or something.
PAULEY: That's right. Along with Beyonce and Brad Pitt, Fetterman was one of the paper's most stylish people of 2022. It was an edgy, modern look.
GISELE FETTERMAN: It was appalling.
Even Fetterman's wife thinks his "style" is appalling.
After an in-depth discussion about Fetterman's mental health treatment and his years-long battle with depression, Pauley thought that would be a good time to subtlety nudge him to run for President.
"Your trajectory from mayor to lieutenant governor, United States Senator, was still pointing up, at 53 in politics that's a young man," she swooned. "Can you have aspirations? Can you serve beyond the United States Senate?"
Fetterman wisely brushed her off and said his asperation is "being the kind of dad, the kind of husband, and the kind of Senator that Pennsylvania deserves."
He can barely speak and needs to read closed captioning to fully understand what people say to him yet Pauley apparently believes he could run and serve as President of the United States.
According to CNN host Don Lemon, Nikki Haley is past her prime at age 51, yet a 53-year-old stroke victim isn't past his prime.
As nationally syndicated conservative talk radio host Chris Plante says: "It's good to be a Democrat."
This embarrassing softball interview by CBS Sunday Morning's Jane Pauley was made possible by Walmart. Their information is linked so you can contact them.
To read the transcript of the interview, click "expand":
CBS Sunday Morning
4/2/2023
9:06:51 a.m. EasternJANE PAULEY: Senator John Fetterman is home in Braddock, Pennsylvania, six weeks after he was hospitalized for depression at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center where we talked with him this past week. I found Senator Fetterman hopeful, optimistic, ready to return to the United States Senate and his role as a dad.
So, if we sat down, you would take the rocking chair?
SENATOR JOHN FETTERMAN: Yeah, yeah, that's me.
PAULEY: At six foot eight, John Fetterman is still a formidable man despite two serious assaults on his health in less than a year. He suffered a stroke in May, and after a private struggle for years, in mid-February, he entered Walter Reed for treatment of depression. We talked there two days before he went home.
FETTERMAN: I will be going home and be the first time ever to be in remission with my depression. And I can't wait to what it really feels like to take it all in and to start making up any lost time.
PAULEY: To colleagues, he seemed lost, even at his swearing-in. Later, Dr. David Williamson recognized major depression.
DR. DAVID WILLIAMSON: He had markedly reduced motivation and drive.
PAULEY: A neuropsychiatrist, Williamson has been treating Senator Fetterman.
WILLIAMSON: The RPM in the brain, how fast you think and clearly you think is very substantially degraded when patients get depressed.
PAULEY: It's reversible?
WILLIAMSON: It’s certainly reversible, yes.
PAULEY: One in three stroke patients develops depression. 21 million American adults have experienced major depression. What makes John Fetterman's diagnosis unique, but not unprecedented, is a politician sharing it publicly.
FETTERMAN: My message right now isn't political. I’m just somebody that's suffering from depression.
PAULEY: A former steel town outside Pittsburgh, Braddock put him on the map, and vice versa. Population less than 2,000 with high unemployment, low income, and a towering mayor with a Harvard degree and a penchant for hoodies and shorts, he was becoming a rising political star and an unlikely darling of the fashion world.
GISELE FETTERMAN: What did GQ call you? They said you were a fashion God or something?
PAULEY: His wife of 15 years, Gisele.
JOHN FETTERMAN: American taste God. Then The New York Times I found out that I was one of the most fashionable or something.
PAULEY: That's right. Along with Beyonce and Brad Pitt, Fetterman was one of the paper's most stylish people of 2022. It was an edgy, modern look.
GISELE FETTERMAN: It was appalling.
JOHN FETTERMAN: I know.
PAULEY: John Fetterman began his campaign for United States Senate last spring with the wind to his back. But after the stroke at age 52, he would fight headwinds until election day when his health became the issue. Doctors at Walter Reed have discovered a serious hearing deficit, further complicating the way his brain now processes spoken language.
When I talk, what do you hear?
FETTERMAN: I hear you talking and I can understand much of what you are saying. But my hearing has a deficiency that makes it difficult for me to fully understand 100 percent of it.
PAULEY: At some point, you described what you hear as like Charlie Brown's teacher.
FETTERMAN: Yeah, early on that was more, you know, months and months ago, whatever. But right now captioning is helpful for me.
PAULEY: I should get my husband one of those because when I talk, he hears that same wa-wa-wa-wa-wa.
FETTERMAN: Well, yeah.
PAULEY: His reliance on closed captioning had its biggest test during the campaign's one debate which was widely considered a setback.
FETTERMAN: I am the only person on this stage right now that has–that can–successful about—
PAULEY: The debate performance was not you at your best. Was that fair?
FETTERMAN: If I'm in the race and I made the decision to stay in the race, it's important that I show up for a debate. And knowing that it would be challenging and that's what we did.
PAULEY: And in November John Fetterman won, flipping a Republican-held Senate seat.
FETTERMAN: I am so humble. Thank you so much really. Thank you!
PAULEY: But there was something behind that smile.
FETTERMAN: It's like you just won the biggest, you know, race in the country, and the whole thing about depression is that objectively you may have won, but depression can actually convince you that you actually lost, and that's exactly what happened. And that was the start of a downward spiral.
PAULEY: In the interim between the campaign and being sworn in, at home in November/December, depression started gathering strength. Is that correct?
FETTERMAN: Very much. Very much. I had stopped leaving my bed. I stopped eating, dropping weight. I stopped engaging some of the most things that I love in my life.
PAULEY: Including time with Gisele and their three children aged 8 to 14.
FETTERMAN: I had a conversation with my 14-year-old and he said, dad, what's wrong? We're great. We're here. And you won. An incredibly sad moment where my 14-year-old can't possibly understand why you can't get out of your bed.
PAULEY: Someone you love as much as you love your son couldn't make you get out of bed. Couldn't make you not be depressed. You stayed in bed.
FETTERMAN: Yeah, that's true.
PAULEY: But he went to Washington. And on January 3rd was sworn in.
People who know you say that that day you looked miserable and lost.
FETTERMAN: Yeah. I was definitely depressed.
GISELE FETTERMAN: I think with depression, you’re always waiting for, oh, that's the thing that's gonna change it, right?
PAULEY: Gisele read as much as she could find about depression.
GISELE FETTERMAN: He just became the Senator. He’s married to me. He has amazing kids and he is still depressed. And I think the outside would look and say, how does this happen? But depression doesn't necessarily make sense, right? It's not rational.
PAULEY: He stops eating and drinking.
JOHN FETTERMAN: I was at a Democratic retreat and many of my colleagues were coming up to me and asking, why aren't you eating?
PAULEY: Did you care if you were there or anywhere or nowhere?
FETTERMAN: I just showed up where my staff said.
PAULEY: Robotic?
FETTERMAN: Yeah. Exactly. Yeah.
PAULEY: As it was described to me, you were agnostic about the question of living or not. At that time.
FETTERMAN: Yeah, well, I never had any self-harm, but I was indifferent though. If the doctor said, gee, you have 18 months to live, I would be like meh, okay, well, that's how things go.
PAULEY: A concerned doctor began making arrangements at Walter Reed and on his son's 14th birthday he agreed to go. What a waste if you hadn't. Recovery was weeks away.
FETTERMAN: Yeah.
PAULEY: For the uninitiated, depression doesn't exist in the same sphere as love. So the question of how can a man not care about living in a world where those children you clearly adore are living.
FETTERMAN: It makes me sad. You know, the day that I go in was my son's birthday. And I hope that for the rest of his life his birthday would be joyous and you don't have to remember that your father was admitted.
PAULEY: Oh, but wait. This is where your renewal began. His birthday is a day for both of you to celebrate.
FETTERMAN: Yeah. That's a good way to look at it. I’m looking forward to doing that.
PAULEY: You seem hopeful.
FETTERMAN: For the first time, yeah. It's a strange feeling for me to have.
PAULEY: Your trajectory from mayor to lieutenant governor, United States Senator, was still pointing up, at 53 in politics that's a young man. Can you have aspirations? Can you serve beyond the United States Senate?
FETTERMAN: You know, my aspiration is to take my son to the restaurant that we were supposed to go during his birthday, but couldn't because I had checked myself in for depression. And being the kind of dad, the kind of husband, and the kind of Senator that Pennsylvania deserves. You know, that's truly what my aspiration is.
