MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough believes the Pennsylvania Senate debate left no questions about the health of one of the candidates.
The state’s lieutenant governor and Democratic Senate nominee John Fetterman suffered a stroke in May, which sidelined him for three months. Since then, there have been questions about his health.
Scarborough tweeted during the debate on Tuesday night, “This is painful to watch regardless of one’s politics.”
During a segment of “Morning Joe” Wednesday, he said, “It’s very obvious that he is impaired.”
“His ability to communicate is impaired. And the question is…Pennsylvania voters have a couple of choices,” he continued.
Watch the video below:
Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman agreed with Scarborough’s assessment that Fetterman is “still struggling from the fallout of his stroke.”
Scarborough continued, “I remember Dasha Burns getting in trouble a couple weeks ago with people on the left, even some mainstream voices, saying that he had trouble with small talk. Well, it was very obvious last night. Of course, he underwent a major stroke.”
He added, “The question is, how impaired is he? And that’s something that the voters of Pennsylvania are going to be sorting through, even if people on the left want to pretend it doesn’t exist. It does exist, but does it mean he can’t serve as senator? That’s just up to the voters of Pennsylvania.”
The MSNBC co-host referenced the criticism NBC News’ Dasha Burns received after she shared that Fetterman had difficulty understanding small talk without the use of closed captioning.
Gisele Fetterman later called on Burns to apologize for her comments and accused her of being “ableist.” Meanwhile, other journalists and commentators suggested the reporter was to blame for his apparent difficulty understanding small talk.
Fetterman’s primary care physician, Clifford Chen, provided a detailed medical report to The Philadelphia Inquirer earlier this month. It stated the candidate’s “communication is significantly improved compared to his first visit, assisted by speech therapy, which he has attended on a regular basis since the stroke.”
Hopefully, Fetterman will continue to recover from his stroke.
However, what voters saw in the debate on Tuesday night cannot reassure them that at this time he is fit to be a senator if he wins the election — or that he will be by the time he would be sworn in in January.
The attacks against Burns for sharing her experience with Fetterman certainly did not help matters. Nor did it help when an NBC reporter accused conservative strategist Greg Price of doctoring videos of Fetterman to make it appear his condition was worse than it is.
Anyone who had not really followed Fetterman and believed videos of him were doctored must have been at least a little dismayed by his performance on Tuesday.
