NBC News’ Dasha Burns recently aired the first in-person interview with Pennsylvania senatorial candidate John Fetterman since his stroke. The candidate needed a closed-captioned monitor to answ.
NBC News’ Dasha Burns recently aired the first in-person interview with Pennsylvania senatorial candidate John Fetterman since his stroke. The candidate needed a closed-captioned monitor to answer questions because of “auditory processing” struggles caused by his recent stroke. “In small talk before my interview,” Burns added, “it wasn’t clear he understood what I was saying.”
Oh, boy. Democrats swarmed, attacking Burns for stating the obvious: Fetterman isn’t OK. It’s remarkable to watch how quickly partisans can coalesce around a new talking point. For months, the national media has been telling us Fetterman’s campaign was completely “normal,” even as video emerges of the candidate struggling to cobble two coherent sentences in succession. In September, Fetterman said that the “only lingering issue” he experienced was occasionally missing a word or “mush(ing) two words together.” Yet in only a few minutes last night, the entire left adopted a new position, denouncing any mention of his ailment as an “ableist” attack on a person with a “disability.”
Democrats struggled to calibrate this new accusation, comparing Fetterman’s cognitive struggles to handicaps. “How is this any different from Tammy Duckworth or Madison Cawthorn needing a wheelchair? How is it different from many elderly Senators who need hearing aids?” asked left-winger Eric Michael Garcia.
