Former Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman was so shocked by his former boss’ behavior that he wrote a lengthy letter in a doctor’s warning that the senator was out of control and that his mental health problems could kill him.
Former Chief of Staff Adam Jentleson wrote to a doctor on May 20, treating Mr. Fetterman at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
According to the former aide, Mr Fettman’s behavior is still related to his reduced circles, but is sometimes a reason for the attention. His other former members spoke on anonymous, reporting that if his colleagues sometimes feel fear, if he is in a good mood.
If Mr. Fettman was on the steering wheel due to his dangerous driving habits, they were also warned not to get on the car. Assistants have been in a turn since the election, his turmoil and the turmoil about behavior and the behavior of assistants are just turning. This coincides with the period when his politics became more conservative, as he had watched his Pennsylvania hometown for Mr. Trump.
“He couldn’t see the doctor,” Jentleson wrote to the medical director last year. “I’m not sure he last met a cardiologist, but I don’t think he’s seen him since he was released. He ordered us long ago to stop letting go with Dr. Monahan, although he has agreed to part of those plans.” Dr. Brian P. Monahan, a Navy doctor, has been working as a field physician at the Capitol for nearly 15 years.
Mr. Jenterson’s letter was obtained by The New York Times, which was first reported by New York Magazine.
“My actual doctor and my family affirmed that I was fine,” Mr. Fettman said in a statement. He called the New York magazine article “the popular work” and suggested that Mr. Jenterson and the author of the article, Ben Terris, were “best friends” and grind them with an axe, who “provided anonymous, disgruntled employees for the semi-real person who lie or distort the truth.”
(Mr. Terris revealed in his article that Mr. Jentleson is a personal friend.)
A spokesman for Mr. Fetterman also raised questions on Friday about Mr. Jentelson’s motivation to release a personal letter to the public, given that mental health problems already exist in men.
Mr. Jenterson refused to respond.
Mr. Fetterman, the first Pennsylvania senator, suffered an almost fatal stroke during the campaign, and spent six weeks at Walter Reed in 2023 receiving treatment for clinical depression. When he was released, Mr. Fetterman seemed to have turned. He began to adapt to the Senate life, confusing it with journalists and colleagues in the corridor and seeing it as a unique responsibility for mental health issues.
“Talking about it is a burden, but it is also a privilege. It’s also a very, very bipartisan opportunity. Red or blue, if you have depression, please get help, don’t always.”
The auditory processing issues associated with his stroke also seemed to be reduced, and Mr. Fettman began talking casually with people without having to rely on audio transcription.
As he adapted to the life of the Senator, Mr. Fettman also became more conservative, mainly in Israel, but also involved a range of other issues. The senator, the first Democrat to meet with Trump at his Margrago estate after the election, seemed to think it was savvy to find common ground politically at the moment his state swings further to the right.
A zealous Fox News monitor, Mr Fortman, even seriously considered the vote to confirm Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, the former weekend host for Fox and Friends, according to a former aide. The green light of the vote to a cabinet appointment marks a charge of excessive drinking and abuse of women, which makes it difficult for Republican senators to fall behind him.
It is unclear to everyone who works closely with him that Mr Fettman’s political shift or his current challenge is directly related to the mental health crisis that sent him to the hospital two years ago. But in his letter, Mr. Jantson described the unstable behavior he said, which may be the result of the senator’s failure to follow the medical plan, including taking prescription medications, outlined by his doctor at the time.
“John has driven out everyone who was supposed to help him maintain his recovery program,” Mr. Jenterson wrote in a letter to Dr. David Williamson, medical director of Walter Reed’s neuropsychiatry/traumatic brain injury department. “We don’t know if he is taking the medication, and his behavior often shows that he is not.”
In his letter, he said that people around Mr. Fettman often witnessed “warning signals” that doctors warned, including “conspiracy thinking, large rabies (for example, the monologue he claimed to be the most knowledgeable source of Israel and Gaza, and it was painful and embarrassing to everyone in the room.”
He said Mr Fettman spent most of his time on the phone and making tweets, and the matter with his wife Gisele was “tough”.
“He engages in dangerous behavior. He drives recklessly. He has bought a gun recently,” Mr. Jenterson wrote, noting that the purchase of the gun was a warning sign that he had been directed to report to medical professionals.
Gisele Fetterman disputed Jentleson’s claim in a statement in a New York magazine, accusing him of lying about her husband’s illness.
Ms. Fettman has shown a unified front with her husband in recent months. She accompanied him to visit Mary Lago after the election and held a meeting in Israel last month with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Still, many of his employees are concerned about working for Mr. Fetterman, and his mood can change dramatically from day to day. His driving is still an area of particular concern.
Senators have long been called reckless drivers, sometimes traveling more than 70 miles in a 30-mile-per-hour zone. Last year, he and his wife and a 62-year-old woman were hospitalized after carrying the woman’s car on the Eisenhower Memorial Highway in western Maryland.
According to police reports, Mr Fettman was traveling faster than the 70-mile-per-hour speed limit. Pennsylvania records show that Mr. Fettman has at least two driving violations in the state, where he traveled 20 miles above the speed limit.
