Sources: Fetterman Staffer Fled Meeting in Tears Over His Behavior

Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was meeting last week with representatives from a teachers union in his home state when things quickly devolved, sources tell the AP. Before long, Fetterman began repeating himself, shouting and questioning why "everybody is mad at me," "why does everyone hate me, what did I ever do" and slamming his hands on a desk, according to one person who was briefed on what occurred. As the meeting deteriorated, a staff member moved to end it and ushered the visitors into the hallway, where she broke down crying. The staffer was comforted by the teachers who were themselves rattled by Fetterman's behavior, according to a second person who was briefed separately on the meeting.

The interaction at Fetterman's Washington office, described to the AP by the two people who spoke about it on condition of anonymity, came the day before New York magazine published a story in which former staff and political advisers to Fetterman aired concerns about the senator's mental health. That story included a 2024 letter, also obtained by the AP, in which Fetterman's one-time chief of staff Adam Jentleson told a neuropsychiatrist who had treated Fetterman for depression that the senator appeared to be off his recovery plan and was exhibiting alarming behavior, including a tendency toward "long, rambling, repetitive and self-centered monologues."

Asked about the meeting with teachers union representatives, Fetterman said in a statement through his office that they "had a spirited conversation about our collective frustration with the Trump administration's cuts to our education system." He also said he "will always support our teachers, and I will always reject anyone's attempt to turn Pennsylvania's public schools into a voucher program." Fetterman earlier this week brushed off the New York story as a "hit piece." The teachers union encounter adds to the questions being raised about his mental health and behavior barely three years after he survived a stroke on the 2022 campaign trail that he said almost killed him, followed by a bout with depression that landed him in Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for six weeks.

(More John Fetterman stories.)