Sen. John Fetterman’s sporadic incomprehensibility has been well documented ever since his stroke in May 2022. However, a recent incident has exposed the great lengths to which the Pennsylvania Democrat’s team and his allies in the liberal media are willing to go in order to downplay his continued debility.
Fetterman confounded a witness and his colleagues during a Senate hearing Tuesday, spouting another incoherent assemblage of words framed as a question to which no one responded.
What was actually said — the intended substance of which some Republicans agreed with — stands in stark contrast to the misquote manufactured by Fetterman’s office, then recirculated by Washington Post reporter Jeff Stein.
Stein tweeted that Fetterman asked Silicon Valley Bank ex-CEO Greg Becker, “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,” reported Fox News Digital.
The question was succinct and coherent, only it hadn’t passed Fetterman’s lips as quoted.
Here is what Fetterman actually said: “The Republicans want to give a work requirement for SNAP. You know, for a uh, uh, uh, a hungry family has to have these, this kind of penalties, or these some kinds of word — working, uh, require — Shouldn’t you have a working requirement, after we sail your bank, billions of your bank? Because you seem we were preoccupied, uh when, then SNAP requirements for works, for hungry people, but not about protecting the tax, the tax papers, you know, that will bail them out of whatever does about a bank to crash it.”
\u201cJUST IN: John Fetterman struggles to ask a question at a Senate Banking Committee hearing.\n\nThis is the most painful 90 seconds you will watch all month.\n\n\u201cThat\u2019s like if you have I mean like, eh eh and and they also realize is that that that now they have, it\u2019s in they\u2026\u201d— Collin Rugg (@Collin Rugg)
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After getting roundly criticized for his hand in what appeared to be politically expedient historical revisionism, Stein tweeted Wednesday, “Yesterday I tweeted this quote, provided to me by the Senator’s office, without checking it against the video. That was my fault. Though it captured his meaning, I deleted the tweet since some of the words in the quote were inaccurate.”
While Stein admitted fault, he wasn’t alone.
Katherine Fung, writing for Newsweek, similarly cleaned up Fetterman’s mess of a question — extra to that conventionally expected of a reporter — quoting him as saying, “Republicans want a work requirement for SNAP, for hungry families…. Shouldn’t you have a working requirement after we [bail out] your bank?”
Prem Thakker at the New Republic and Stephen Neukam at The Hill also went the distance to polish up Fetterman’s remarks.
Fox News Digital reported that Fetterman’s office routinely cures the senator’s remarks posted to his congressional website, which bear little resemblance to what he actually said.
For instance, Fetterman’s office quoted him as saying during an April 26 Senate hearing, “I’m really excited about Whole-Home Repairs. Here in Pennsylvania, one of my friends, Nikil Saval in the Senate, shepherded it. And he got linked up with the Republicans and they actually created one of the first kinds of a program like this in the nation.”
What Fetterman said was much closer to: “I’m really excited by it, because here in Pennsylvania one of my friends really [inaudible] it, Nikil Saval, he was one of the literally — quite literally — as hard left as a politician I’m aware of — you know — certainly in the Senate. Um, he really helped shepherd that. And he got linked up with the Republicans, and he actually created the first kind of a program like this in the nation, you know. And one of my colleague — Mr. Vance — talked about well if there’s a leak in the ceiling, what if you don’t have the money to fix that? What can happen to that, kinda things?”
While Fetterman’s perseverance has been widely commended and there have been bipartisan expressions of hope that his recovery is successful, there remain concerns that he is presently not up the demands of one in his position.
Blaze TV host Chad Prather tweeted, “This man can’t even complete a sentence. Fetterman should RESIGN immediately and take some time off and focus on his health.”
Conservative pundit Carmine Sabia wrote, “Democrats have no shame. Sens. John Fetterman and Dianne Feinstein need to resign and address their medical issues. This is sad.”
“There is no way John Fetterman should be in office,” wrote TPUSA journalist Benny Johnson.
Joe Calvello, a spokesman for Fetterman, told Newsweek, “If sickos on the internet want to keep making fun of John for recovering from a health challenge, that’s between them and their consciences.”
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