- Messages
- 2,490
I put this in the news thread, but this needs its own/
Paywalled: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/art...ruggle-mental-health-clinical-depression.html
Summary: https://www.jezebel.com/john-fettermans-wife-reportedly-told-staff-she-was-at-a-breaking-point
In June, Fetterman almost killed himself and his wife, Gisele, in a car accident caused by his reckless driving.
On Friday, New York magazine published a lengthy story on Fetterman’s, err, condition, featuring extensive interviews with past staffers and Fetterman himself. “Former and current staffers paint a picture of an erratic senator who has become almost impossible to work for and whose mental-health situation is more serious and complicated than previously reported,” the feature begins.
A considerable portion of the article delves into Fetterman’s allegedly declining relationship with Gisele, who also became a political star during Fetterman’s Senate campaign, due to her progressive positions and social media savvy. The article describes tearful conversations between Gisele and Fetterman as she pleaded with him to reverse course on his support for Israel’s war crimes in the fall of 2023, to no avail. “They are bombing refugee camps. How can you support this?” a staffer recalled Gisele telling Fetterman in his office with tears in her eyes, around November 2023. He reportedly replied, “That’s all propaganda.”
“I am at breaking point and I can’t co-sign this any longer. Id love some help in language to separate myself from this. Can anyone help me?” Gisele wrote in a text to one staffer. Another former staffer claimed they overheard Gisele on speakerphone in December 2023, saying to Fetterman, “Who did I marry? Where is the man I married?” Gisele and Fetterman’s staffers have been in frequent contact about concerns with Fetterman’s mental state over the last couple years; Gisele reportedly impressed upon his staffers to prevent him from accessing passwords to his social media accounts. Many of those staffers are no longer working for Fetterman.
...
Gisele also wound up joining Fetterman for his meeting with Trump in December. According to the magazine, as recently as February, Fetterman reportedly said of Palestinians in a meeting with a pro-Israel group, “You can’t reform a carton of sour milk” and “kill them all.”
...
In a statement for the story, Gisele blamed pretty much everything on Fetterman’s former chief of staff and close confidante, Adam Jentleson, claiming Jentleson repeatedly misled her about Fetterman’s health, and denying most of Terris’ reporting. She accused Jentleson of being part of a conspiracy against her husband and said he fed her “scary, untrue stories about John’s health.” She explained, “I would talk to John’s doctors about what Adam was telling me and they would be confused. Those doctors would tell me that their concerns were not with John, but with Adam. Any alleged ‘concerns’ heard from me came straight from those lies, not from John’s doctors or my own eyes.” In response to these accusations, Jentlesen told Terris, “I stand by everything I said, and I hope Senator Fetterman gets the help he needs.” Take from all that what you will, I guess!
While hospitalized in 2023, Fetterman reportedly suffered intense delusions: He told doctors he suspected family members were wearing wires and recording him and hallucinated political rallies happening around him. Other staffers recount that Fetterman sometimes seemed to believe he was being followed by shadowy figures. One doctor attributed the delusions during his hospital stay to lingering effects from his 2022 stroke, dehydration, and complications with his medications. But his removal from reality persisted even after he left the hospital, former staffers said, recounting their recurring concerns that Fetterman wasn’t taking his medications.
...
In a May 2024 letter to Fetterman’s doctors, Jentleson wrote, “We do not know if he is taking his meds and his behavior frequently suggests he is not… We often see the kind of warning signs we discussed.” In the letter, Jentleson recounted how Fetterman had recently bought a gun, and appeared to suffer from “conspiratorial thinking” and “megalomania,” seeing himself as a distinguished expert on Israel and Gaza solely from reading news articles, for instance. Perhaps most concerning, Jentleson and other staff accused Fetterman of actively endangering himself and others with extreme reckless driving, frequently driving well over the speed limit, and not just texting and actively reading news articles while driving over the speed limit, but even engaging in full-on FaceTime calls. In June 2024, Fetterman got into a car accident while speeding on a highway; he crashed into a 62-year-old woman driver, and Gisele, sitting in the backseat, suffered a pulmonary contusion and spinal fractures. Fetterman admitted he’d fallen asleep at the wheel. “It’s a miracle no one died,” the responding police officer said.
..
Paywalled: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/art...ruggle-mental-health-clinical-depression.html
Summary: https://www.jezebel.com/john-fettermans-wife-reportedly-told-staff-she-was-at-a-breaking-point
In June, Fetterman almost killed himself and his wife, Gisele, in a car accident caused by his reckless driving.
On Friday, New York magazine published a lengthy story on Fetterman’s, err, condition, featuring extensive interviews with past staffers and Fetterman himself. “Former and current staffers paint a picture of an erratic senator who has become almost impossible to work for and whose mental-health situation is more serious and complicated than previously reported,” the feature begins.
A considerable portion of the article delves into Fetterman’s allegedly declining relationship with Gisele, who also became a political star during Fetterman’s Senate campaign, due to her progressive positions and social media savvy. The article describes tearful conversations between Gisele and Fetterman as she pleaded with him to reverse course on his support for Israel’s war crimes in the fall of 2023, to no avail. “They are bombing refugee camps. How can you support this?” a staffer recalled Gisele telling Fetterman in his office with tears in her eyes, around November 2023. He reportedly replied, “That’s all propaganda.”
“I am at breaking point and I can’t co-sign this any longer. Id love some help in language to separate myself from this. Can anyone help me?” Gisele wrote in a text to one staffer. Another former staffer claimed they overheard Gisele on speakerphone in December 2023, saying to Fetterman, “Who did I marry? Where is the man I married?” Gisele and Fetterman’s staffers have been in frequent contact about concerns with Fetterman’s mental state over the last couple years; Gisele reportedly impressed upon his staffers to prevent him from accessing passwords to his social media accounts. Many of those staffers are no longer working for Fetterman.
...
Gisele also wound up joining Fetterman for his meeting with Trump in December. According to the magazine, as recently as February, Fetterman reportedly said of Palestinians in a meeting with a pro-Israel group, “You can’t reform a carton of sour milk” and “kill them all.”
...
In a statement for the story, Gisele blamed pretty much everything on Fetterman’s former chief of staff and close confidante, Adam Jentleson, claiming Jentleson repeatedly misled her about Fetterman’s health, and denying most of Terris’ reporting. She accused Jentleson of being part of a conspiracy against her husband and said he fed her “scary, untrue stories about John’s health.” She explained, “I would talk to John’s doctors about what Adam was telling me and they would be confused. Those doctors would tell me that their concerns were not with John, but with Adam. Any alleged ‘concerns’ heard from me came straight from those lies, not from John’s doctors or my own eyes.” In response to these accusations, Jentlesen told Terris, “I stand by everything I said, and I hope Senator Fetterman gets the help he needs.” Take from all that what you will, I guess!
While hospitalized in 2023, Fetterman reportedly suffered intense delusions: He told doctors he suspected family members were wearing wires and recording him and hallucinated political rallies happening around him. Other staffers recount that Fetterman sometimes seemed to believe he was being followed by shadowy figures. One doctor attributed the delusions during his hospital stay to lingering effects from his 2022 stroke, dehydration, and complications with his medications. But his removal from reality persisted even after he left the hospital, former staffers said, recounting their recurring concerns that Fetterman wasn’t taking his medications.
...
In a May 2024 letter to Fetterman’s doctors, Jentleson wrote, “We do not know if he is taking his meds and his behavior frequently suggests he is not… We often see the kind of warning signs we discussed.” In the letter, Jentleson recounted how Fetterman had recently bought a gun, and appeared to suffer from “conspiratorial thinking” and “megalomania,” seeing himself as a distinguished expert on Israel and Gaza solely from reading news articles, for instance. Perhaps most concerning, Jentleson and other staff accused Fetterman of actively endangering himself and others with extreme reckless driving, frequently driving well over the speed limit, and not just texting and actively reading news articles while driving over the speed limit, but even engaging in full-on FaceTime calls. In June 2024, Fetterman got into a car accident while speeding on a highway; he crashed into a 62-year-old woman driver, and Gisele, sitting in the backseat, suffered a pulmonary contusion and spinal fractures. Fetterman admitted he’d fallen asleep at the wheel. “It’s a miracle no one died,” the responding police officer said.
..
