MSNBC’s Dasha Burns interviewed Pennsylvania Democratic Senate candidate Lt. Gov. John Fetterman and apparently didn’t get the memo. Burns was late in receiving the proper orders about not acknowledging Fetterman’s diminished mental capacity due to his severe stroke before the primary. Since Fetterman hit the campaign trail, it’s been a linguistic mess, loaded with incomplete thoughts and outright nonsense that has provided voters with a better case to vote for Republican Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz based on health reasons alone. Every time Fetterman opens his mouth, it’s a trainwreck. In these critical final weeks, where candidates push to get out the vote and make the final arguments why they, not their opponent, should represent them, Fetterman might not be able to do it.
REPORTER: “Are you committed to showing up on October 25th to debate your opponent?”
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 12, 2022
FETTERMAN: “No.”
Fetterman five seconds later: “Yeah, of course I’m gonna show up on the 25th.” pic.twitter.com/s1n7Fsbo88
MSNBC: John Fetterman "has a hard time understanding what he's hearing...he still has some problems, some challenges with speech...he had a hard time understanding our conversations." pic.twitter.com/EYLNVxb0Cy
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) October 11, 2022
There is a debate set between Fetterman and Oz later this month, which is scheduled to happen. However, one of the stipulations of the debate is that Fetterman reads the questions off a closed-captioned screen. It wouldn’t have shocked me in the least if Fetterman had pulled out, but now he must move forward and hope for the best. To back out now would only accentuate the glaring mental health inhibitions.
Until then, the liberal media is doing everything they can to make Fetterman seem not like a person recovering from a stroke. Countless lefty writers dredged up interviews, displaying them as evidence that the lieutenant governor is as cogent as a Rhodes Scholar.
Burns also received some criticism for the interview because she told the truth. She revelead there were moments where Fetterman appeared to not comprehend what she was asking. The media reaction was born from Burns’ inadvertent admission regarding Fetterman’s health status. Also, the GOP has surged nationwide in recent weeks, especially in Pennsylvania—where Oz has used Fetterman’s exceptionally soft record on public safety to chip away at his opponent’s once-vaunted double-digit lead. It’s now a statistical dead heat, with signs that the Republican Party base is rallying behind Oz and that suburban voters are turning their backs on Joe Biden. The media must launch cruise missiles and strike back, but as they’ve done so many times, they’ve overreached. Closed captioning is now being politicized to shield Fetterman from further scrutiny about his health (via WaPo):
Dear God.
— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) October 13, 2022
The Washington Post is over. https://t.co/d1lMiBCDlM
During his first on-camera interview since having a stroke, Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman stumbled over words and used closed captioning to read interview questions, prompting Republicans to raise new questions about his health.
Disability advocates, however, say that response shows a lack of understanding about accommodations that are often made after a major health event such as a stroke.
“I sometimes will hear things in a way that’s not perfectly clear,” Fetterman told NBC News, in an interview Friday, which was aired Tuesday. “So I use captioning, so I’m able to see what you’re saying on the captioning.”
While neurological experts said they could not offer a specific diagnosis about Fetterman’s health, they noted that closed captions are a common tool for people with auditory processing or hearing issues, conditions which have nothing to do with overall intelligence.
“This is not an issue of intelligence, it’s not an issue of cognition, but unfortunately how we get information in and out tends to impact how people perceive that,” said Brooke Hatfield, an associate director for the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association.
Spencer noted the more severe part about the Washington Post piece yesterday, highlighting another bit of classic liberal media bias: burying the lede. Fetterman might be showing signs of aphasia, a debilitating neurological disorder that actor Bruce Willis was recently diagnosed with, prompting his immediate retirement from the entertainment industry. Dr. Oz has released his health records, while Fetterman has kept them as secret as the missing portions of the Nixon Tapes. His joking about not being on a heart transplant list during a recent radio interview would be dismissed as an off-the-cuff joke, but is it? We know next to nothing about the circumstances of his stroke. You can’t be a U.S. Senator if you’ve recovered from a stroke and might be suffering from aphasia. One way to dispel further health rumors is for Fetterman to release his health records.
The question about Fetterman isn’t about intelligence but whether the person representing his constituents can do the job—and Fetterman cannot do that. Sen. Mark Kirk (R-IL) suffered a major stroke while in office. He recovered but was limited and lost re-election by 14 points to Tammy Duckworth. Maybe he should have just stepped aside in 2016.
Who knew that closed captioning would become a topic to shield a Democrat from legitimate questions about his fitness to serve?
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