By Ian Karbal, Peter Hall, and John Cole | Pennsylvania Capital-Star
New York Magazine’s article airing concerns about Sen. John Fetterman’s alleged health struggles was the kind of story that shifted a news cycle — a rare feat in 2025, considering it had little or nothing to do with President Donald Trump.
The reporting, relying largely on ex-Fetterman staffers including his former chief of staff Adam Jentleson, painted a troubling picture. Since taking office, it alleged, Fetterman has displayed signs of paranoia, delusional thinking and erratic behavior, sometimes seeming unaware of his surroundings altogether. Jentleson said staff were concerned that he stopped following his doctors’ treatment plans following a stroke near the end of his 2022 Senate campaign and a subsequent hospitalization for clinical depression.
Fetterman strongly repudiated the article’s claims.
“New York Magazine decided to platform a grudge fashioned by best friends and disgruntled staffers unwilling to put their names on it,” Fetterman told the Capital-Star in an email. “If there were genuine concerns, they’d pick up the phone and call me, not the press. My actual doctors and my family affirmed that I’m in good health.”
A spokesperson for Fetterman added that the Pennsylvania Democrat has “always been fully transparent about the health issues that impacted his ability to work, and he will continue to be open should his circumstances ever change … He, his family, and his doctors have affirmed that he is in good health. Any anonymously sourced claims suggesting otherwise are untrue and to smear.”
Since the article’s publication, other reports have emerged on Fetterman’s behavior. The Associated Press reported on a recent outburst at a meeting with union officials, and anonymous former staffers told the Inquirer that Fetterman has been “disengaged” from his duties as senator.
Fetterman has missed 18.9% of floor votes since taking office. That includes a number of votes during his six-week hospitalization for depression in 2023. According to the nonpartisan vote-tracker GovTrack, the median senator misses 2.7% of votes while in office.
“I’ve made roughly 90% of the votes since January,” Fetterman said in a statement sent to the Capital-Star. “The missed votes were overwhelmingly procedural, my vote was never determinative and limited to travel days.”
The allegations about Fetterman surfaced as Democrats broadly have faced criticism for sweeping concerns about members’ fitness for office under the rug. Most prominently, the party was roiled after President Joe Biden’s disastrous 2024 debate performance appeared to confirm fears in the electorate that he was cognitively incapable of serving a second term. Biden ultimately stepped aside in the presidential race, though Fetterman remained one of his strongest defenders.
That followed the 2023 death of then-Sen. Dianne Feinstein, at 90-years-old, who had been the subject of reports of diminishing cognitive capacity. More recently, House Democrats backed 75-year-old Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) over Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to serve as the top party member on the House Oversight Committee, despite concerns about his age and health. Connolly gave up the seat on the committee and said last month that he won’t seek reelection, citing a return of his esophageal cancer. The phenomenon hasn’t been limited to the Democratic side of the aisle. Republican congresswoman Kay Granger of Texas missed more than five months of votes last year while living in a memory care and assisted living facility.
‘Disgraceful smears’
Some prominent political figures have rushed to Fetterman’s defense, including Pennsylvania’s junior senator, Republican Dave McCormick.
“It’s time to put politics aside and stop these vicious, personal attacks against Senator Fetterman, his wife, and his health,” McCormick wrote on social media Friday morning. “While we have many differences, we are both committed to working together to achieve results for the people of Pennsylvania and make their lives better. He is authentic, decent, principled, and a fighter. These disgraceful smears against him are not the John that I know and respect.”
A few elected officials from outside of the Keystone State from different sides of the aisle have also spoken out in support of Fetterman
“The only reason for the coordinated campaign against Senator John Fetterman is his unapologetic pro-Israel politics. Let’s call it what it is,” U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) wrote on social media Friday. “As someone who has struggled with depression my whole adult life, I can tell you that if you truly care about someone’s mental health, leaking hit pieces against them is a strange way of showing it.”
U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) also chimed in go to bat for Fetterman.
“John Fetterman and I have our differences, but he’s a decent and genuine guy,” Cotton wrote. “The radical left is smearing him with dishonest, vicious attacks because he’s pro-Israel and they only want reliable anti-Israel politicians. Disgraceful.”
T.J. Rooney, a Democratic consultant and former chairman of the Pennsylvania state party, has spoken approvingly of Fetterman’s honesty about his health problems and iconoclastic political views.
“One of the ways he’s unique is he made all of his successes himself. Politics bent to him. John didn’t bend to the politics,” Rooney told the Capital-Star.
But he rejected the assertion by Fetterman and others that the reporting is part of an orchestrated attack.
“I think people are reading a whole lot more into this than it’s deserving of,” Rooney said. “It’s just so f—–g sad. There are times in life when people find themselves in positions in life that they are not well suited to.”
For Fetterman’s first two years in the U.S. Senate, he served alongside Bob Casey. During Casey’s farewell address in December, Fetterman lauded Casey, who was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 2006, as a mentor and said that he was by his side when Fetterman had a stroke: “He lent me his voice when I was learning how to speak again. I never forgot that.”
When Fetterman was facing criticism from fellow Democrats earlier in Trump’s term for backing some of his cabinet selections, Casey defended him and called him a “very good senator” and said that he thinks he’d “do the right thing when it comes to protecting the most vulnerable and protecting the middle class.”
The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that a memo from Jentleson noted that Fetterman’s relationships with colleagues began to suffer, including his “notable friendship” that “deteriorated” with Casey.
Casey told the Capital-Star Friday that “John and I have always had different styles and approaches to the job, but we had a strong relationship while I was in the Senate,” when asked about Fetterman’s fitness and current job performance.
But some political insiders have called for his resignation, including Jonathan Last, the editor of the Bulwark who once saw Fetterman as a model for the future of the Democratic Party. Cumberland County Democratic Party chair Matt Roan also called for Fetterman’s resignation in an op-ed in March, before the New York Magazine report. The day that article was published, he reposted his own editorial and wrote, “I’ve been here for a month.”
Gov. Josh Shapiro has taken a more measured approach.
“I think the best judge of Sen. Fetterman’s health is Sen. Fetterman and his family, and I’ll leave it to them to discuss that,” Shapiro said to reporters during a press conference in Philadelphia Thursday.
When asked what he thought about Fetterman’s job performance, Shapiro said “again, I think it’s a question for Sen Fetterman and his family and the people of Pennsylvania to weigh in on.”
Gov. Tom Wolf and state Sen. Sharif Street (D-Philadelphia), who is chairman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party, declined to comment.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) did not respond to questions sent to his press team by the Capital-Star.
‘A lot of noise’
Since taking office in 2023, Fetterman’s standing among Democrats in his own state has been rocky.
Recent polling shows Fetterman still has support in the commonwealth, even improving marginally since he took office with around 50% approving of him compared to 35% disapproving in March. But a recent poll conducted before the New York Magazine story suggests that’s despite his support sinking among Democrats.
Though he ran as a progressive, Fetterman has since drawn ire from the left wing of his own party. Early opposition was over his staunch defense of Israel’s actions in Gaza. He was also the only Democrat to vote to confirm Attorney General Pam Bondi, who sidestepped questions about whether Trump lost the 2020 election during her confirmation hearings, and he criticized members of his party who wanted to force a government shutdown in March over opposition to federal cuts.
In February, just weeks into the Trump administration, he was denounced along with Trump and Elon Musk, leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, by speakers at a Pittsburgh protest organized by progressive activists. While protesters decried what they saw as executive overreach, and Fetterman’s failure to oppose it, the senator saw it differently.
“There isn’t a constitutional crisis, and all of these things ― it’s just a lot of noise,” Fetterman told HuffPost in February. “That’s why I’m only gonna swing on the strikes.”
Fetterman’s term in the Senate doesn’t end until 2029, and in politics nothing is certain. But questions about his fitness to serve could impact what will likely be an important race for both parties. Pennsylvania is one of only two states, along with Michigan, to have a Republican and Democratic senator, though a third, Maine, has a Republican and independent who caucuses with Democrats.
Roan told the Capital-Star he’s concerned Fetterman’s job performance will further dragging down voters’ confidence after what Roan called “feckless” opposition by congressional Democrats to Trump’s lawlessness.
“A lot of the public isn’t so hot on Democrats right now, so we need people in those slots who can mount a more effective response to Trump’s abuses,” Roan said.
Having led the local effort to turn out voters for Fetterman in 2022, Roan said Fetterman’s term so far has been a disappointment that he fears could erode support for Democrats in down-ballot races.
“Every time our elected officials let us down it negatively affects our donors and their support,” Roan said.
Since the start of his Senate campaign, Fetterman has been a fundraising juggernaut. However, in the first three months of 2025, his campaign raised just over $395,000, which was the lowest amount in a full quarter since he declared for the seat in February 2021.
While a sitting senator in the middle of his term isn’t a priority for donors, Roan said, it could signal doubt about Fetterman’s viability as a candidate going forward.
Rooney, the Democratic consultant, wouldn’t weigh in on calls for Fetterman’s resignation, but said his next campaign should be secondary to his wellbeing.
“Does he have a future in elected office? I don’t know, but that’s not what’s important right now,” he said. “We just want the guy to get some help. He’s got a great family, a wife who obviously cares a lot about him, kids who adore him.”
Pennsylvania Capital-Star is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Pennsylvania Capital-Star maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Tim Lambert for questions: info@penncapital-star.com.
