In the period preceding the vote to confirm Pete Hegseth as Secretary of Defense, Senator Patty Murray, D-Wash., He knew that his party had a problem and his name was John Fetterman.
Fetterman, Pennsylvania’s Democratic Senator, was open to confirming President Donald Trump’s choice, according to two people familiar with his thoughts. Murray wanted to talk to his individual colleague. Then she reached out to set up a time.
But Fetterman refused, as the two people familiar with the episode told NBC News.
“He figured she wanted to scream with him about it,” said a familiar person with the senator’s thought.
The fact that Fetterman doesn’t even talk to one of the most senior members of his party who is respected at Caucus and, like Fetterman, has a reputation for being a direct-so-failed shooter the way Fetterman operated on the Senate.
This article is based on interviews with 18 Ex -Fetterman employees, Pennsylvania employees and congressional law enforcementrs, many of whom said the senator is increasingly isolated and absent from official businesses in both Washington and his homeland.
His behavior received a renewed scrutiny after a recent article by New York magazine detailing concerns about his mental health from one of his closest advisers, as well as some frustration of the Democrats that Fetterman is not on the same page as many other party members when it comes to facing Trump and his agenda.
The crucial point of the article focused on a May 2024 letter from the former chief of fetterman’s cabinet, Adam Jentleson, addressed to David Williamson, neuropsychiatrist of the Walter Reed Medical Center senator, where Fetterman spent six weeks in 2023 to treat clinical depression. In this letter, which NBC News obtained, Jentleson expressed concern that if his boss “remains in his current career, he will not be with us for much longer.”
“We don’t know if he is taking his medicines and his behavior often suggests he is not,” Jentleson wrote. “We Often See the Kind of Warning Signs We Discussed: Conspiracy Thinking; Megalomania (For Example, He Claims To Be The Most KnowledGeable Source on Israel and Gaza Around But His Sorces Are Just What Het Reads In The News – He Decins Most Briefings And Never Reads Memos) Highs and Low Lows; Long, Rambling, Repetitive and Self-Cenhored Monologues;
A Fetterman -Voice door emphasized that the senator has no intention of renouncing and has been transparent about his health, related to his stroke or hospitalization on Walter Reed.
“People in your circle and people who talk to him know this is John Fetterman,” said the door -voice. “He is not an outgoing. This is how he works. He cares about Pennsylvania, he keeps a crowded schedule, is meeting people all the time. Most of the time, he votes in party lines and has good relationships with his colleagues.”
“There is expectations of a stereotyped politician he never expressed that he would try to be,” this person added. “People knew he was breaking the tradition and elected him for that reason.”
On Tuesday, Fetterman said the New York magazine article was built on “One Source” with “an anonymous couple”, describing -as a “successful piece of a very left publication.”
Fetterman added Friday to NBC News that the article “decided platform a grudge created by disgruntled friends and employees who are unwilling to put their names in it.”
“My doctors and my family said I’m in good health,” he said.
In response to Fetterman’s previous reaction, Jentleson said on Tuesday: “I get what I said and I hope he gets the help he needs.”
The incident with Murray was not the only recent meeting with a colleague. As he left the cover room after voting against Hegseth’s nomination, he bumped into Senator Jeanne Shaheen, DN.H.
Shaheen, a member of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee ranking, wanted to discuss a republican bill designed to punish the International Criminal Court for issuing arrest warrants to Israeli authorities.
Two sources familiar with the exchange said Fetterman was “rude and discharge” to her. He also suggested to her that he would be more inclined to help him if she put him on the committee – something she didn’t have the power to do.
Fetterman turned out to be the only democrat to support the republican bill, which did not pass.
The offices of Murray and Shaheen refused to comment.
“Senator Fetterman has a lot of conversations with his colleagues on both sides, and he doesn’t comment on these discussions,” said a fetterman -oriented door. “He respects and values vice -president Murray and ranking member Shaheen and considers them great colleagues and leaders.”
‘I didn’t see him this year in person’
Fetterman never had a warm and confused reputation. As mayor of Braddock – an oppressed, once prospering the city steelmate around Pittsburgh “Then Lieutenant Governor of Pennsylvania, Fetterman became known for his direct style of conversation, fearless social media personality and unconventional image for a democratic politician.”
Fetterman won the election to the Senate in 2022. But his race was plagued by challenges – especially a debilitating stroke that kept the Democratic candidate off the trail for months.
Still, Fetterman and his team managed to connect with the voters. They made an intensive social media campaign to portray Fetterman as an authentic Pennsylvanian against celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz, who had only limited ties to the state and is now a Trump government health official.
But those familiar with Fetterman say that he has often neglected the duties of his work as long as they are elected, rarely appearing at non-sidelines in his homeland, regularly lacking committee, brands and votes.
Last year from April 2024 to March – Fetterman lost 77 of 381 votes, according to Govtrack. This placed it in the 90th 99 percentile among all senators in terms of total votes lost during each three -month calendar stretch at that time.
Of the senators who served the entire 118th Congress, only Senator Tim Scott, RS.C. And then Sen. Jd Vance, R-ohio, lost more votes than Fetterman-E both were running for presidency or with Trump’s entry as his plate companion. Obviously, many of these lost votes included the six -week stretch when Fetterman was hospitalized.
Fetterman also rarely participates in audiences or business meetings for the three committees about whom he is a member. This year alone, Fetterman jumped 25 of the 26 hearings or business meetings that the Senate Commerce Committee held, with the first hearing he participated in Thursday, after the New York magazine article was published.
He lost all nine of the audiences and business meetings that the Senate’s internal security committee has held this year and ignored every 11 times the Senate Agriculture Committee gathered in 2025.
Among the meetings he lost were confirmation hearings to the main nominees to Trump, such as Transport Secretary Sean Duffy, Trade Secretary Howard Lutnick, Internal Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Director of Administration and Budget Russell Voght and Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins.
Fetterman also voted for Proxy – which means the committee member announced his vote because he was absent – for all the votes that all three committees took this year in legislation, nominations or organizing resolutions.
In a comment for this article, Fetterman did not address so many committee hearings, but said about the votes last year: “All in 2024 was about the election.”
“I spent months traveling through Pennsylvania to help keep Democrats in the White House,” he said, adding that so far this year he “did about 90% of the votes” while those he lost “were predominantly procedural, my vote was never determining and limited to travel days.”
Due to his lack of events in the state, a spokesman said this year’s Senate schedule “has given a few opportunities for extensive travel in the state since January.” He also sought time to spend on his family.
“In the coming months of spring and summer, when the Senate is in recess, there will be more opportunities for events in the state,” said that person.
This was not enough for some in the state. In March, Cumberland County Democratic President Matt Roan asked Fetterman to dismiss himself in an article that exploded the senator for “refused to hold Pennsylvania City Hall meetings to hear his constituents.”
“Just,” Roan wrote, adding, “He seems disinterested in serving in this important position.”
In addition, a Pennsylvania Democratic legislator who talked to NBC News on Thursday said he had no interactions with Fetterman in recent months.
“I didn’t see him this year in person,” said the legislator. “My team reaches the bills and things like that.”
They added that Democrat Bob Casey, who lost reelection to the Senate in 2024, was “a much, much more active partner.”
According to Philadelphia Function, Fetterman publicly appeared only once in the state this year at the Pennsylvania farm show in January.
Fetterman is not known as Glad-Hand or builds relationships with many of his colleagues. Even among the delegation of the Keystone State Congress, where members often need to coordinate issues such as infrastructure projects and natural disasters, Fetterman is absent.
“The whole delegation talked about the signal about how it is so strange, never returned phone calls from either of us (nor his former chief),” said a participant in the Pennsylvania delegation signal group. “I’m sure he couldn’t identify most of us from a formation.”
The opinion was not unanimous, however.
“My team and I have a good working relationship with the senator and his team,” said Deputy Chris Deluzio, D-PA., Who represents a district near Fetterman’s house in a statement. “This is important throughout the PA delegation and can help us do things for our region.”
Still, some who talked to NBC News worried if Fetterman is having cognitive struggles that may be exacerbating their isolation.
Pennsylvania Democratic legislator expressed concern about the New York magazine article, saying that if there is a problem, “it needs to be approached and can be approached.”
“He did this successfully once before and should,” said this person, pointing to 2023, when Fetterman became the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for mental health treatment. “It’s not like the hottest and most fluid speaker in the world. So you’re starting with someone who has an atypical personality.”
But Jentleson said he saw a decline in the strength of Fetterman’s relationships after this episode. In his letter of May 2024, he said that the seine Pain “is constantly on your phone and spends more time rolling and creating tweets than any other activity.”
“He is isolated and has damaged his personal relationships,” he added. “In the fall, he began building relationships with other senators, but it has fallen from a cliff. He has reasons why they are all to get it secretly, and he will throw himself in an endless taken over why everyone is terrible and he is the only healthy person.”
Senator Peter Welch, D-VT. However, he said he had dinner with Fetterman and Senator Katie Britt, R-Ala. Two weeks ago. He said Fetterman “was doing very well” and described it as “a special talent in our party” that “has a way to talk to everyday people who really connect.”
“Now he has undergone an incredible health event and continuous care is needed,” Welch told NBC News. “I am not aware of it, but you don’t have to know much to know that this is a continuous challenge, and I want to be there to support it as much as possible.”
‘He is so isolated’
After his stroke, Fetterman received praise from the entire political spectrum by openly sharing his struggles and destiguers them.
“People listen to a lifetime about ‘I can’t get out of bed’ and you really can’t understand what it really means,” he told NBC “Meet The Press” in December 2023. “You can’t get out of bed until it happens to you. And that happened.”
But the vibration around Fetterman changed as a growing team exodus followed him since the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023 in Israel. Fetterman vehemently defended Israel’s conduct in Gaza in the months since then, becoming one of his robust defenders in Congress and alienating much of the left support base that defended him in his 2022 primary.
At the same time, despite being a consistent democratic vote, he moved to the right in part of his rhetorical and approach. He was the only democrat to visit Trump on Mar-a-lag during the transition and voted in favor of several of his cabinet options, including Attorney General Pam Bondi.
When the Democrats released a resolution in January to condemn Trump’s perdons of supporters who participated in the attack of 6 January 2021 to the Capitol, Fetterman, who later signed the resolution, described it as a vote of “Performic Art.”
“I don’t know if it was a communication break or because I wasn’t aware of it, or they were shaking me, but I love it,” Fetterman said sarcastically about the resolution. “I have. We need more performance art votes, because it has been very useful before the election.”
In an interview with NBC News shortly after Trump’s victory in November, Fetterman said the Democrats needed to stop “freak out” about everything Trump does.
Your favorability numbers tell the story. In an Economist/YouGov survey released this week, with a margin of error of +/- 3.2 percentage points, Fetterman’s favorability is 34% with voters who supported former vice president Kamala Harris last fall. With Trump voters, there are 39%. Voters who have unfavorable opinions are reversed, with 39% of Harris voters and 34% of Trump voters watching unfavorable Fetterman.
As for its opening to Hegseth’s confirmation, which faced an allegation of sexual aggression he denied, Fetterman’s view was framed around a disdain for “canceling culture,” according to a person familiar with his thinking. Among some justifications he floated, the senator repeatedly questioned why the Democrats were willing to accept former President Bill Clinton-who faced allegations of sexual misconduct and Jay-Z, who faced allegations of sexual assault at the time, said that person. (Jay-Z sued his accuser in March for allegedly falsifying his claims after she left an action against him.)
“He made some complaints about it,” said that person.
Asked about his consideration of Hegseth, Fetterman emphasized that his vote in the candidate “was no.”
“Considering a vote is a characteristic of a senator, not a bug,” he told NBC News.
A –vook added that Fetterman “expects his team to disagree with him about things.”
“This is normal,” said that person. “But transporting complaints publicly harms the team and puts their work at risk.”
Some have defended Fetterman in recent days – including political law.
Salena Zito, Conservative Journalist Based in Pennsylvania Who IntervieWed Fetterman and Sen. Dave McCormick, R-PA., Together in February, Tweeted That After Spending Time With Him Thes and Reading The New York Magazine Story, “My Only Conclusion To Come To To Too is that Someone is Looking for Redemption for Having Worked for Him Because He Wasn’t Left Enough and They Are Trying to Destroy Him. ”
Three Republican Senators – McCormick, along with Chuck Grassley, from Iowa and Tom Cotton, from Arkansas – tweeted fetterman support on Friday.
“It’s time to leave policy aside and prevent these personal and cruel attacks against Senator Fetterman, his wife and his health,” wrote McCormick. “Although we have many differences, we are committed to working together to achieve results for the Pensylvania people and improve their lives.”
Cotton said Fetterman was a “decent and genuine face” and said the “radical left is staining him with dishonest and cruel attacks because he is pro-Israel and they only want reliable anti-Israel politicians.”
Publicly, the members of the congress who weighed Fetterman, and no one asked him to dismiss himself. In particular, the detractors and allies do not think he will leave office soon. A Pennsylvania House Democrat said he knows Fetterman well and spent time in his office, never seeing anything strange. This person believes he is able to serve.
Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer, Dn.Y., was among those who expressed support for Fetterman.
“He’s doing a good job and is a good legislator,” said Schumer.
Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro, who had a volatile relationship with Fetterman, offered only brief comments on Thursday to the senator.
“I’m just going to say this: I think Senator Fetterman’s best health judge is Senator Fetterman and his family, and I will let them discuss it,” Shapiro said, according to Philadelphia’s tenure.
An ex -Fetterman employee said the question of whether Fetterman should continue to serve should be summed up if he is doing his job.
“Are you meeting constituents?” This person said. “How are these meetings? How is your schedule? Are you losing a lot of votes? Are you in committee hearings? Are you for these nominees to Trump? Are you doing things in the state? Are you visible?
“I think it’s connected to your mental health,” continued the ex -employee. “He is so isolated and clearly so unhappy in Washington, so that the work seems an imposition to him, and he is not doing it. Pennsylvania has no two senators now.”
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