Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn., spoke out against the hardships he faced adjusting to life in the U.S. Senate after his 2022 victory, in particular the "social media blowtorch" that he claims was "unleashed" on his family.
The U.S. Senator claimed that in addition to mockery of him, his critics resorted to mockery of his children, something he claimed he couldn’t "imagine" happening.
Fetterman voiced his complaints in a sympathetic interview with MSNBC "Morning Joe" host Joe Scarborough on Tuesday.
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During their exchange, the journalist focused on Fetterman’s difficulties transitioning to life as a U.S. senator particularly in the wake of lawmaker’s health problems, including a battle with depression and his much-publicized recovery from a stroke that occurred last May.
Scarborough initially brought up Fetterman suffering through clinical depression, a condition that forced him to take a hiatus from his brand-new office as senator this year.
Comparing his struggles to that of former historical leaders Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, Scarborough asked, "Do you get inspiration from people like Lincoln and Churchill who struggled with depression their whole lives, and yet fought through it and changed the world?"
Fetterman affirmed he does, and added, "I would say there’s almost kind of like a nobility to it – or suffering – there’s some nobility to that. It toughens you up or whatever, but it didn’t toughen me up. It nearly ruined me, and I know it put my family through a lot of pain."
Elsewhere in the interview, Scarborough continued on the topic of Fetterman’s pain while trying to perform as a U.S. Senator.
Recalling watching the senator starting his job, he stated, "I remember thinking at the time that this is tough enough for anybody to adjust to life on the Hill, I could not imagine the pain you had to be in adjusting to the challenges after your stroke, adjusting to being this big guy, this take charge leader who suddenly had all of these new challenges coming at you so quickly."
"It had to be so isolating," Scarborough said.
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Fetterman replied by acknowledging that as "the truth," and then turned to his family’s suffering at the hands of social media critics.
He said, "And another thing that was very punishing at that time too, is that there was the social media blowtorch unleashed on my family as well, too."
Fetterman then rebuked these critics, saying, "Unleash whatever you want to on me, but, you know, my family, I just can’t imagine anybody that would think it would be funny to make fun of children or whatever."
Fetterman’s wife, Gisele Fetterman has been outspoken about criticism against herself in particular since her husband’s Senate victory.
In a guest column for women’s magazine Elle in March, Fetterman claimed that the "vast majority of the harassment" aimed at the Fetterman family since the election "wasn’t directed toward John—but at me."
