Democratic Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman's former chief of staff was so alarmed by his mental health last year that he sounded an alarm with the Walter Reed doctor who treated him during his lengthy in-patient stay for severe depression in 2023. Former aides who are in contact with Fetterman's shrinking inner circle say his behavior continues to cause periodic concern about his danger to himself and those around him. 

“I’m worried that if John stays on his current trajectory he won’t be with us for much longer,” wrote Adam Jentleson in his 2024 email to Dr. David Williamson, neuropsychiatry chief at Walter Reed. Jentleson sent the email in May, weeks after he resigned from Fetterman's staff. In quitting, he became the fifth top aide to jump ship since Fetterman beat Trump-endorsed TV doctor Mehmet Oz in 2022. 

Jentleson's 1,600-word email, first reported by New York Magazine, referenced many warning signs that Fetterman's family and other close confidants had been told to watch out for: 

“We often see the kind of warning signs we discussed. Conspiratorial thinking; megalomania (for example, he claims to be the most knowledgeable source on Israel and Gaza around but his sources are just what he reads in the news — he declines most briefings and never reads memos); high highs and low lows; long, rambling, repetitive and self centered monologues; lying in ways that are painfully, awkwardly obvious to everyone in the room.”

"We do not know if he is taking his meds, and his behavior frequently suggests he is not," wrote Jentleson, and a staffer told New York there have been days when aides would make sure nobody from outside the office came into contact with him -- days when he was in "some sort of state" where he could potentially say some "really fucked-up shit to constituents." In February, Fetterman was recorded being uncooperative with a pilot directing the overweight senator to either adhere to FAA rules requiring that one's fastened seatbelt is visible, or get off the plane: 

Sources describe tension between Fetterman and his wife. "In March, Fetterman suddenly took an early-morning trip to Hartford, Connecticut, without telling his team why — leaving them at a loss for what to tell Gisele when she demanded to know why he was missing one of their kids’ birthdays," according to New York. Fetterman disputed the account, explaining he was visiting a grad-school friend's grave and claiming that his family and aides knew about it.

In his email last year, Jentleson also said Fetterman was avoiding his doctors: "He long ago ordered us to stop putting regular drop-bys with Dr. Monahan on his schedule, despite the fact that he had agreed to those as part of the plan." In group-texts from March 2024, staffers noted that the blood tests that were to be included in those appointments were "pillars of the recovery plan." Fetterman consultant Eric Stern wrote, "Is there any universe in which [his wife] Gisele could convince him to get his levels checked? I’m honestly just worried for him and don’t know who else could get through to him.”

Jentleson worried about Fetterman growing increasingly isolated, telling Williamson that “John has pushed out everyone who was supposed to help keep him on his recovery plan." He said the senator was spending hours gazing at this phone and composing tweets. Fetterman was said to have previously acknowledged that a preoccupation with social media was a principal "accelerant" of his depression.   

"He engages in risky behavior," wrote Jentleson. "He drives recklessly: he FaceTimes, texts and reads entire news articles while driving — and I don’t mean while stopped at a light or something, he reads and FaceTimes while driving at high speeds." The warning about Fetterman's driving would soon prove prophetic -- almost fatally so. The next month, driving with his wife Gisele, Fetterman rammed his 2021 Chevy Traverse into the back of a car driven by a 61-year-old woman.

“It’s a miracle no one died,” a police officer said. Both vehicles were totaled and all three people were hospitalized, with Gisele suffering a bruised lung and spinal fractures. Police Fetterman was going "well over" the 70 mph limit on I-70. Fetterman admitted to falling asleep at the wheel. His staff had worried about that very possibility, as Fetterman's accident happened after he took a red-eye flight from California where he appeared on Bill Maher's show. He ignored his aides' pleas to ask someone to pick him up at the airport and drive him. 

Fetterman called the New York Magazine article a "hit piece" by two conspiring friends, Jentleson and writer Ben Terris, who "sourced anonymous, disgruntled staffers with lies or distorted half-truths," adding that “my ACTUAL doctors and my family affirmed that I’m very well.” His wife Gisele similarly accused Jentleson of lying. 

Fetterman had a near-fatal stroke on May 13, 2022 -- four days before the Pennsylvania primary -- and was left with communications impairments that were painfully evident on those occasions where his campaign dared put him in front of cameras and microphones: 

His depression hospitalization came just days after a lengthy and jarring New York Times profile that obliterated previous campaign assurances of Fetterman's fitness for Senate duty following his stroke. His treatment included medications, talk therapy and therapeutic walks at Walter Reed's rooftop healing garden. According to a discharge brief written by Williamson, Fetterman suffered “severe symptoms of depression with low energy and motivation, minimal speech, poor sleep, slowed thinking, slowed movement, feelings of guilt and worthlessness." He didn't have suicidal thoughts, according to the doctor. 

After taping a podcast inteview with Fetterman in April, The Bulwark's Tim Miller said Fetterman is "struggling. He’s, like, really struggling. And I just think coming off of the Biden thing, we should not be hiding the ball on this sort of stuff.” Of course, cynics have to wonder if leftist media's interest in illuminating the state of Fetterman's mental health has anything to do with his lean toward conservative stances, such as his backing of stricter immigration and border control. 

After all, the Biden scandal showed that Democrats are all too happy to conceal major mental impairments up until the point they pose a risk to the leftist agenda.