After an NBC News report made the choice to focus on John Fetterman’s stroke recovery, the Pennsylvania lieutenant governor still came out swinging at his opponent, Dr. Oz, on Wednesday morning. In a candid tweet, Fetterman continued to be upfront about his health issues, which he’s been transparent about since suffering a stroke ahead of the PA primaries in May. Fetterman has routinely called out Oz’s campaign for taking cheap shots at the near-death experience, and that’s not about to change.
“Recovering from a stroke in public isn’t easy,” Fetterman tweeted. “But in January, I’m going to be much better – and Dr. Oz will still be a fraud.”
Recovering from a stroke in public isn’t easy.
But in January, I’m going to be much better – and Dr. Oz will still be a fraud.
— John Fetterman (@JohnFetterman) October 12, 2022
Fetterman’s resolve arrives after NBC News aired the first in-person interview with the Senate candidate, and he required the use of closed captioning. However, that isn’t new information. Fetterman has been open that he still has lingering auditory issues from the stroke, and that it sometimes affects his speech. NBC News highlighted this difficulty by noting that “Fetterman occasionally stuttered and had trouble finding words.”
A subsequent published report took things even further by actually writing out Fetterman’s stuttering:
Fetterman, acknowledging the challenges he still faces, added: “But it gets much, much better where I take in a lot. But to be precise, I use captioning, so that’s really the maijing — that’s the major challenge. And every now and then I’ll miss a word. Every now and then. Or sometimes I’ll maybe mush two words together. But as long as I have captioning, I’m able to understand exactly what’s being asked.”
At one point, he struggled to articulate the word “empathetic” — toggling between the correct pronunciation and “emphetic” — and then pointed to that as an example of the effect of the stroke. Asked about those moments, Fetterman said searching for language is not a difficult experience.
“No, I don’t think it was hard. It was just about having to be thinking more, uh, sl, uh — slower — to just understand and that sometimes that’s kind of the processing that happens,” Fetterman said.
NBC News reporting was widely criticized by journalists who have recently interviewed Fetterman. The news organization was also taken to task for leaning into ableism.
You can see some of the reactions below:
Sorry to say but I talked to @JohnFetterman for over an hour without stop or any aides and this is just nonsense. Maybe this reporter is just bad at small talk. https://t.co/CX9B7qWUaS
— Kara Swisher (@karaswisher) October 12, 2022
It’s absolutely disgusting what the media is doing to John Fetterman. He has a hearing impairment as a result of his stroke and they’re treating it as a scandal. It’s one of the worst examples of ableism in politics I’ve ever seen.
— Alejandra Caraballo (@Esqueer_) October 12, 2022
Fetterman said he struggles to audibly process convos due to his stroke in May. But Burns says once he can read it, he can understand it. Then she said in small talk before interview before closed captioning was rolling, it wasn’t clear he could understand
What’s the issue here? https://t.co/BsYZ1zFyGX
— Ryan Deto (@RyanDeto) October 12, 2022
He had a stroke a couple a months ago, right? I think it’s heartening to see how well he’s recovering and, also, kind of cool to see his attitude towards the recovery process https://t.co/1Cn1WUdiGH
— EricaGrieder (@EricaGrieder) October 12, 2022
With long COVID moving millions of people along the disability spectrum, it’s a strange time for folks to make uncritical ableism their schtick. Maybe five years ago you could do this to Fetterman and sound serious. But this year you sound very out of touch.
— Tressie McMillan Cottom (@tressiemcphd) October 12, 2022
I spent PLENTY of time talking to people with disabilities and many members of Congress and he comes off pretty cogent while admitting where he skips a word or slurs them together https://t.co/0WRTpsg76z
— Eric Michael Garcia (@EricMGarcia) October 12, 2022
I interviewed @JohnFetterman here, he understood everything I was saying and he was funny https://t.co/NTITXDtqxY https://t.co/nMhIXMvbTY
— Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) October 12, 2022
.@JohnFetterman can do the job of a U.S. Senator. @NBCNews making an absurdly big deal of a reasonable accommodation is disgusting.
This is nothing more than vile ableism from NBC. https://t.co/uW7XOZQrQI
— Matthew Cortland, they/them (@mattbc) October 12, 2022