John Fetterman’s mental health has reportedly declined to the point that he has turned to MAGA for validation, according to political strategist Steve Schmidt.
“I think he’s unfit for office,” Schmidt, a former adviser to George W. Bush, told host Joanna Coles on The Daily Beast Podcast about the Democratic Pennsylvania senator.
The co-founder of The Lincoln Project and the Save America Movement then went on to explain that he believes Fetterman, 56, has not fully recovered from an “incapacitating stroke” he suffered in 2022, shortly before he was elected to the Senate.
“Fetterman comes into the Senate, and he’s very disabled from the stroke,” Schmidt pointed out, referring to a period in 2023 when the senator was admitted for inpatient treatment of severe clinical depression.
After six weeks of intensive care, Fetterman returned to the Senate, with doctors saying his depression was in remission, but Schmidt said this marked the beginning of what he described as Fetterman’s “transformation.”
“There’s been a lot written about how he behaves around people,” Schmidt told Coles, following up with a question: “But you see also in real time the degree to which this man is publicly manipulated by Fox News, right?”
Last year, the editorial board of The Philadelphia Inquirer said the senator “must take his position seriously,” and a bombshell New York Magazine report detailed former staffers raising concerns about the senator’s mental state.
Fetterman maintained that calls for him to step down over his mental health were part of a “weird smear” against him.
In a Thursday report, New York Magazine published leaked messages that show the Democrat mocking free healthcare, dismissing the Epstein files as a “nothing burger,” and calling Democrats hypocritical over their outrage at the killing of nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis.
“I think that this is a person whose self-esteem is so broken, so shattered that he suffers from this disease of depression, that what validates him is not love, is not the affection of people that brought him to where he is, but rather the faux affections of his enemies,” Schmidt said.
On Wednesday, Fetterman lost his third chief of staff since taking office in early 2023.
His net popularity has also fallen among his Democratic constituents. While he was up 68 points in 2023, in March, he was down 40 points—a 108-point swing, a Quinnipiac poll showed.
“He should never have been celebrated for dressing like a child in a grown-up’s job,” Schmidt said, referring to the senator’s habit of wearing a hoodie and gym shorts on the Senate floor before the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to formalize its dress code.
“John Fetterman is going to be a senator who’s defeated in the primary, should he choose to run for election,” Schmidt said.
“And if he switches parties, and he’s a good fit for MAGA, then he should switch parties, and he’ll be defeated in the general election,” he added. Fetterman’s term as senator runs until 2028.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Fetterman’s office for comment.
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