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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.
By Annie Karni
Reporting from the Capitol
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.
Instead, he said he was “showing up because people in the media have weaponized” his absenteeism on Capitol Hill to portray him as mentally unfit, when in fact it is a product of a decision to spend more time at home and less on the mundane tasks of being a senator.
“My doctor warned years ago: After it’s public that you are getting help for depression, people will weaponize that,” Mr. Fetterman said in his office this week. “Simple things are turned. That’s exactly what happened.”
He added: “It shook me that people are willing to weaponize that I got help.”
It is the latest chapter in Mr. Fetterman’s rocky time in the national political spotlight, where at the height of his popularity he harbored aspirations to run for president in 2028. Now, he is aggrieved that such a dream appears out of reach.
And for that, he largely blames his decision to speak out two years ago about his mental health struggles, which he said gave rise to all that has followed, including a recent series of unflattering reports detailing erratic behavior, a poor attendance record and general disinterest in doing his job.
To recap: Mr. Fetterman, the 6-foot-8-inch, self-proclaimed champion of working-class voters, had a life-threatening stroke in 2022 in the middle of the most competitive Senate race in the country, which he went on to win. Shortly after being sworn in, he checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center to be treated for depression for six weeks, and appeared to make a remarkable recovery as he began speaking out about the importance of getting help when needed.
He was an outspoken supporter of Israel after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack and started picking more fights with the left. His pro-Israel stance gave him a sense of purpose on Capitol Hill in a job he otherwise did not enjoy. And then, at some point in the middle of last year, he pulled even further back from participating in many aspects of the Senate, like attending committee meetings, casting votes and holding town halls.
It was around that time that his former chief of staff wrote to Mr. Fetterman’s doctor that his boss was spiraling out of control and that his mental health issues could cost him his life. That letter, first published by New York Magazine earlier this month, raised a new round of questions about Mr. Fetterman’s behavior and performance in the Senate.
Sitting in his office last week, dressed in his uniform of a black Carhartt hoodie and gym shorts, Mr. Fetterman toggled between humor, anger and emotion in discussing his current situation. He expressed deep frustration over the constant questions about his mental health, portraying himself as the victim of untenable circumstances.
“This became the Belichick girlfriend story of politics,” he quipped at one point, referring to the recent media attention around the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill football coach. “It just keeps going and going.”
After his discharge from Walter Reed in 2023, Mr. Fetterman embraced a role as a stigma-busting spokesman for the power of treatment and used his challenges as an opportunity to bridge partisan politics.
“Red or blue, if you have depression, get help, please,” he said in an interview later that year.
These days, Mr. Fetterman is not so sure it was wise to talk about any of that. He doesn’t think it’s anyone’s business whether, as some former aides have suggested, he is or isn’t following the regimen that his doctors recommended to treat his mental health issues. He sings the praises only of Mounjaro, the injectable diabetes and weight-loss drug that he credits with making him feel “a decade younger, as well as clearer-headed and more optimistic than I’d been in years.”
Still, there have been big gaps in his attendance.
Since his return from Walter Reed, Mr. Fetterman has missed more votes than all but two senators, both of whom were campaigning for president last year: Republicans JD Vance of Ohio and Tim Scott of South Carolina, according to a New York Times analysis of Senate roll call records.
This year, the analysis found, Mr. Fetterman also has missed more votes than all but two of his colleagues: Senators Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, and Bernie Sanders, independent of Vermont. Ms. Murray has been absent to care for her ailing husband, while Mr. Sanders has been on his “Fighting Oligarchy Tour,” speaking out against President Trump and drawing a total of 265,000 people to events across 12 states so far, according to a spokeswoman.
Mr. Fetterman, who has said that being away from his family is heartbreaking and “the worst part of the job,” says he has missed votes to spend more time at home with his children. He seethes over the idea that he must show up for Monday night votes — a staple of the Senate calendar often known as “bed checks,” a term he finds paternalistic and demeaning — rather than skip them and enjoy an extra day with his children.
“The votes I missed were overwhelmingly procedural; they’re even called ‘bed check’ votes,” he said. “I had to make a decision: getting here and sticking my thumb in the door for three seconds for a procedural vote or spend Monday night as a dad-daughter date.”
He has also often missed Thursday evening votes because he likes to check in with his father, who recently had a heart attack.
“I would go visit my dad instead of a throwaway vote,” he said.
Hearings also seem to him like a waste of time. Senators question witnesses in order of seniority, leaving Mr. Fetterman, a first-term lawmaker, feeling that by the time his turn comes around, there’s nothing left to ask. He has told people it is like making a plate out of the dregs of a buffet bar.
Mr. Fetterman has also foregone events in his state. He has avoided hosting town halls with his constituents because he does not want to get heckled by protesters.
“I just want to be in a room full of love,” he has told people.
At the same time, Mr. Fetterman has shed staff. And he has grown more isolated from his Democratic colleagues. (Mr. Fetterman detests the word “isolated,” which he thinks is just code for mental health issues.)
Despite attempts from his friends in Congress to draw him out, Mr. Fetterman still does not attend the weekly Democratic caucus lunch in the Capitol. He quit the caucus group chat, he said, because he couldn’t figure out how to turn off the notifications and most of the conversation was insignificant senatorial chitchat.
“It’s not like we were on a chain planning to bomb Yemen,” he said, referring jokingly to leaked Signal chats among top Trump officials. “It’s mostly just happy birthdays. Some days, it’s just emojis.”
Pennsylvania voters who elected Mr. Fetterman in 2022 knew that he was a gruff guy; it was part of his political brand. But his absence has raised questions about whether he is doing the job for which he was sent to Washington. Some constituents have complained that they cannot reach him or his office.
And it has prompted alarm among his Democratic colleagues.
“This is very stressful,” Senator Peter Welch, the Vermont Democrat who is Mr. Fetterman’s closest friend in the caucus, said in an interview. Mr. Welch had dinner this monthwith Mr. Fetterman and Senator Katie Britt, Republican of Alabama. He conceded that the scrutiny about his colleague’s behavior has been difficult for Mr. Fetterman.
“John is hanging in,” he said. “It’s fair to say this is pretty stressful. This is a hard thing.”
Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York and minority leader, recently encouraged Democrats at one of the weekly lunches to do more to reach out and offer support to Mr. Fetterman. And he met with Mr. Fetterman last Thursday to discuss how he is holding up amid the renewed scrutiny of his conduct.
Ms. Klobuchar also met with Mr. Fetterman last week to discuss his priorities on the Agriculture Committee, where she serves as the top Democrat.
“I enjoy working with him and appreciate his perspectives,” she said.
But Mr. Fetterman’s behavior can be jarring to some people who have seen him up close.
In the letter to his doctor last year, Mr. Fetterman’s former chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, wrote that he was concerned that the senator was not sticking to his treatment plan. Former staff aides who have worked closely with him describe erratic behavior and someone who is disconnected from his job. Mr. Fetterman shrugs off those concerns as the griping of anonymous sources with axes to grind.
As his alienation from his party has grown, some Republicans have begun courting Mr. Fetterman, a development that distresses some of his former aides, who argue that he is allowing himself to be used by Republicans to attack other Democrats.
“Really, really cool dude,” Senator Bernie Moreno, Republican of Ohio, said of Mr. Fetterman. “Chuck Schumer is a drooling moron compared to John Fetterman.”
Mr. Fetterman was offended at the suggestion that his Republican friends were exploiting him for political purposes.
“That’s insulting and patronizing to say,” he said. “There’s no political upside for them to be nice to me. They realize what it is, and it’s a smear.”
He said he enjoys the company of G.O.P. lawmakers and agrees with them on several issues — unequivocal support for Israel, the need to crack down on immigration, the downsides of cancel culture — but would never switch parties.
“I’m not going to become a Republican; there’s no lane for me,” he said. “I’m very pro-L.G.B.T.Q.+, pro-choice, pro-union, pro-Medicaid. It’s just not a good match for either of us.”
Mr. Welch, who was the first Democratic senator to publicly call for former President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to step aside last summer, said that he did not harbor similar concerns about Mr. Fetterman’s ability to do his job.
“The health issues of a member of the House or the Senate are important, he said, “but they’re not as existential as who is our candidate for president.”
But some Democrats outside of Congress speak openly about their wish to see him go.
“The regrettable fact is that John Fetterman is not doing the job he was elected to perform,” said Kierstyn Zolfo, a member of the progressive grass roots group Indivisible, who lives in Bucks County in Pennsylvania. “It makes me very sad, because I have supported him for so long, and I worked so hard to get him elected. But he’s just not getting the job done.”
Dylan Freedman contributed reporting.
Annie Karni is a congressional correspondent for The Times. She writes features and profiles, with a recent focus on House Republican leadership.
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