Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was released from a hospital in Washington, D.C., on Friday afternoon, according to his Communications Director, Joe Calvello.
“A few minutes ago, Senator John Fetterman was discharged from The George Washington University Hospital. In addition to the CT, CTA, and MRI tests ruling out a stroke, his EEG test results came back normal, with no evidence of seizures. John is looking forward to spending some time with his family and returning to the Senate on Monday,” Calvello said in a statement.
Fitness to Serve
The freshman Democrat senator had a stroke in May while on the campaign trail. It was caused by a clot from his heart being in an atrial fibrillation rhythm for too long. According to his cardiologist, the senator suffers from both atrial fibrillation and cardiomyopathy.He remained in Penn Medicine Lancaster General Hospital for more than a week and did not immediately return to the campaign trail.
This caused speculation about his fitness to serve in Congress, a concern that persists today.
Once he did return to campaigning, it was clear Fetterman’s speech pattern had become less confident. His campaign explained that he had auditory processing issues. He sometimes garbled his words or had halting speech as he searched to find certain words or dropped words from a sentence.
Fetterman used closed captioning during a political debate but struggled with forming answers without a script. The night of the October Debate, Fetterman’s campaign sent staffers and volunteers a six-page “Debate Night Toolkit” asking everyone to post in support of Fetterman on social media. The toolkit suggested comments to post that would mitigate Fetterman’s speech issues, including:
“John did not get here by winning debates or being a polished speaker. He got here because he connects with Pennsylvanians.
“John’s opponent has been a professional TV personality for the last two decades. Dr. Oz clearly comes in with a huge built-in advantage.
“John has had a remarkable recovery, but there’s never been a closed captions debate like this with one of the candidates dealing with auditory processing disorder. The captioning process may also lead to time delays and errors in the exchanges between the moderators and the candidates.”
While campaigning, he largely read prepared speeches or spoke briefly and let other figures join him at the podium and do most of the talking. Most notably, President Joe Biden and former President Barack Obama campaigned for him in Philadelphia.
Tuesday Fetterman attended Biden’s State of the Union speech and later released a statement saying it was an honor to attend for the first time and that he agreed with Biden that America’s best days still lie ahead.
