U.S. Senate candidate John Fetterman pushed back on the framing of a recent NBC News interview and those who have questioned his use of closed captioning technology as he recovers from a stroke.
“That interview, I mean — if you’re offended, or you would not want to consider voting me, because I’m having our interview” over closed captioning, “that’s kind of surreal to me, why anybody would want to make that an issue,” the Pennsylvania lieutenant governor tells Rolling Stone Thursday. “It’s just kind of strange.”
“I don’t understand that,” he adds. “It’s just bizarre.”
Fetterman says he hasn’t been following the controversy that erupted in the wake of his interview with NBC News that aired Tuesday night. The half-hour segment had been billed as his first in-person conversation with a journalist since he experienced a stroke in May. It led off with an introduction to the closed-captioning technology Fetterman uses to compensate for his difficulties processing speech, a lingering side effect that often accompanies recent strokes and can disappear over time. Questions about that technology and Fetterman’s fitness for office dominated the first half of the interview. The reporter, Dasha Burns, observed at one point that “in small talk before my interview, it wasn’t clear he understood what I was saying.” Related John Fetterman Had a Stroke. Gisele Fetterman Became A Political Star Celebrity Rabbi Turns on Dr. Oz, Calls Campaign 'A Waste' in Leaked Emails Dr. Oz's Gaffe-Filled Senate Campaign: How to Self-Destruct in 7 Easy Steps
Republicans seized on the interview and Burns’ assessment as evidence of Fetterman’s frailty. Indeed, Dr. Mehmet Oz, Fetterman’s GOP opponent, has made attacking Fetterman’s recovery a cornerstone of his campaign and has leaned heavily into undermining the use of Fetterman’s closed-captioning assist in advance of their October 25 debate. During a radio interview in September, Oz called “all this closed captioning stuff” into question and slammed the use of technology as “all the things done because of his health problems.” An Oz campaign strategist echoed that line of attack, telling the Wall Street Journal last month that his use of the technology “raises questions about how sick he really is and whether he is able to serve in the Senate.”
In tweets responding to the criticism, Burns shared that the small talk had happened before the closed captioning technology had been used. “We were happy to accommodate closed captioning,” she added. “Our reporting did not and should not comment on fitness for office. This is for voters to decide. What we do push for as reporters is transparency.”
Fetterman rejects criticism of his use of a visual aid: “I just could not ever imagine, just as a person, to object to somebody if they need captioning — or if you need to use a wheelchair, or you need to use a cane, or you needed to use glasses, or you needed to — anything! I don’t understand that.”
The Democratic nominee has been upfront about his continued struggle with processing spoken words and speech. “I might miss a word, I may mush two words together,” Fetterman said during a rally speech in Bucks County, Pennsylvania last Sunday.
Rolling Stone’s interview with Fetterman was conducted over Google Meet, which includes automated closed captioning technology akin to what he used with NBC. “I hope I’m coming across as very lucid and having a normal conversation,” Fetterman says. “A normal person would think I’m normal — if I wasn’t running for Senate right now, and we didn’t have a doctor trying to make it a massive issue and trying to create something” he added.
Fetterman’s campaign released a letter from his cardiologist in June that attested to his fitness for the Senate, provided he takes care of himself and continues to take his medication. It has otherwise released no further medical records and has not allowed reporters to speak with his doctors.
Fetterman says he takes no issue with the media’s continued focus on his health. “It’s an understanding that I’m going to be talking about it forever and ever,” he says. “I hope that people can understand that I’ve been very forthright about it and having regular conversations. And I would just hope that somebody isn’t thinking, ‘Well, gee, he has to use captioning, that must mean that there’s something wrong.’ And I’m like, ‘No, it’s not. It just means that that in order for me to be very specific of questions, I need to have captions to make sure I’m able to give you the right answer.’”
”There’s no guarantee on what the — if I’ll ever get to be 100% — but I have been able to be functioning and giving an interview with you today or getting up in front of 3,000 people,” he told the Philadelphia Inquirer on Wednesday. “To me, I think that’s the ultimate transparency.”
We want to hear it. Send us a tip using our anonymous form.
Copyright © 2022 Penske Business Media, LLC. All Rights reserved.