Fetterman, oft abwesend im Senat, sagt, er sei dazu geschädigt worden, zurückzukehren
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/24/us/politics/fetterman-senate-absence-mental-health-interview.html?unlocked_article_code=1.Jk8.4BVS.iN9OK6FpMW9f&smid=nytcore-android-share
28 Kommentare
He should just resign. The people of Pennsylvania deserve a Senator who actually cares about the job.
Awww 🥺 poor guy. Got bullied into doing the job he was elected to do! The world can be so cruel sometimes.
The first-term Pennsylvania Democrat said his openness about his mental health issues has been “weaponized” against him, prompting him to start showing up for votes and hearings he considers useless.
When Senator John Fetterman, Democrat of Pennsylvania, showed up at a hearing on May 8 with Sam Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI, his colleagues were surprised to see him. Until then, his chair on the dais of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee had sat empty all year.
But under intense scrutiny about his mental health and his ability to function in his job, Mr. Fetterman has been in damage control mode, attending hearings and votes that he had been routinely skipping over the past year. His colleagues, some of whom have privately described him as absent from the Senate and troubled when he is there, are trying to be supportive.
“Good thoughts, Senator Fetterman,” Senator Amy Klobuchar, Democrat of Minnesota, said encouragingly after Mr. Fetterman finished his turn questioning Mr. Altman.
Mr. Fetterman does not enjoy participating in these hearings that he has sat through in recent weeks as he seeks to prove that he is capable of performing the job he was elected to do until 2028. In fact, at a critical moment for the country, he appears to have little interest in the day-to-day work of serving in the United States Senate.
In an interview, Mr. Fetterman, who represents 13 million people, said he felt he had been unfairly shamed into fulfilling senatorial duties, such as participating in committee work and casting procedural votes on the floor, dismissing them as a “performative” waste of time.
I’d love to pick and choose when and where I show up and do at work. Pretty sure they’d fire me though.
In any other business, he’d been fired.
It’s crazy that this behavior is acceptable in Congress, yet they want to push the work requirements for Medicare, etc…, Fetterman would be fired from any other job.
Donating to that guy was the worst 50 bucks I ever spent.
Wish I could be absent enough from my job to be shamed back in. Must be the life
I really feel terrible for the guy especially with such a debilitating stroke and then having to be one of the two most important people representing millions of people in your state and one of 100 most important people representing your country. But these are very challenging times and we really need all hands on deck because most of us have never seen this kind of assault on our democracy with a leader who is taking us down the road towards autocratic dictatorship.
My fervent wish is that his family, his colleagues, his friends, and all convince him to step down in the interest of the people that he took an oath to represent. We really need somebody who can fight against what’s going on politically in the country rather than another distraction and a weak link.
I would not trust someone with depression to make the judgment call on what votes are considered „useless“. But then again, if any kind of physical and mental fitness test for US senators were to be introduced, we’d be looking at 80% new cabinet members on both sides at this point I think…
I’m pretty sure that showing up is part of the job description.
Oh he’s been shamed into… Doing his job? Rough.
Step aside, the state can find someone to represent them if he won’t.
I mean, that’s how paid employment works. If he doesn’t want the job, he needs to resign and let someone else take it.
I want him gone.
Yeah, work is like that. If you don’t show up a bunch, there is usually someone who is all “hey! You should show up at work more often, cause, you know, it’s like your job and stuff…”. It’s such bullshit…
Shamed into showing up for work. May he has made a vocational error.
We should just keep posting this story over and over and over and over and somehow things will change.
Aw. Poor baby. How awful it is that you’re being forced to do your job
I voted for Fetterman because I lived in his district during that election. I no longer do so I don’t have a horse in the race. That being said, mental health issues are not his fault, but they are his responsibility.
If he can not do the work of the office he ran for and was elected to which involves showing up to hearings and holding town halls which may get uncomfortable and, yes, occasionally wearing suits then he needs to step aside. There are 13 million people in his district, about 2.5% of the US population.
They all, including the ones that disagree with him, deserve better.
Maybe if some one dresses like a depressed teenager from Scranton you should take them at face value
The only sign that he might still be a Democrat is that he is not immune to shame, as compared to Republicans.
Dude, it’s not shame. If you don’t show up to work for three days in a row it’s job abandonment.
Shamed into doing your job? Smh
Shamed into going to work? How TF is that shaming?
Just fucking quit. Real simple. You tried and it did t work. No and I mean no shame in that. But c’mon man. Just go home and heal up.
>*He added: “It shook me that people are willing to weaponize that I got help.”*
That’s extremely disingenuous of Fetterman. People are not weaponising the fact he got help for depression following a stroke. Rather, they’re quite rightly pointing out that he’s not doing the job he is paid to do.
>*In an interview, Mr. Fetterman, who represents 13 million people, said he felt he had been unfairly shamed into fulfilling senatorial duties, such as participating in committee work and casting procedural votes on the floor, dismissing them as a “performative” waste of time.*
It does make one wonder just what Fetterman actually thinks his job is.
Scrutinising and checking proposed legislation and voting on it is a core responsibility of being a senator, as is sitting on committees and questioning a variety of people from the private and public sectors.
He’s going to get ousted so quick in the primary