We cannot have a senator that is not in the right state of mind. So it's not close. He's got to go. New York Magazine has released a long expose and sort of dive into the history of the last few years of John Fetterman, and what they found was disturbing. [00:00:15] The reporting is disturbing. For me personally. Reading this is disturbing, and it will likely be disturbing for you to hear, both in terms of his health as well as some of the things he's said about notable topics in foreign policy, particularly what he wants to happen to Palestinians. And so it's very in-depth and very long. [00:00:32] You should go read the entire thing on New York magazine. But some of the highlights include a look back from the beginning of when he had his stroke months before being elected to the Senate in 2022. There were a lot of claims made about his health coming out of that, but not a lot of good reporting. It turns out that now those who are around him say that it affected him more strongly [00:00:51] than people perhaps knew publicly. And in fact, that eventually led to his chief of staff leaving and in May of 2024, that former Chief of Staff Adam Jentleson wrote a letter to the doctor who had overseen Fetterman's care at Walter Reed, saying I think John is on a bad trajectory [00:01:08] and I'm really worried about him. If things didn't change, he said he was concerned Fetterman, quote, won't be with us for much longer, which is obviously very serious. And he listed a number of reasons why he believed that. He said, we do not know if he's taking his meds, and his behavior [00:01:23] frequently suggests he is not. 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 briefing briefings and never reads memos. [00:01:40] That all reads sort of like uncomfortably close to Donald Trump actually long, rambling, repetitive and self-centered monologues. Also Trumpian lying in ways that are painfully, awkwardly obvious to everyone in the room. Maybe Trump had a really bad stroke, I don't know. [00:01:57] But anyway, he apparently at one point drove his car so recklessly, according to Jentleson, that staff refused to ride with him. He had also bought a gun at one point. He was walking and seemed incapable of seeing that a crowd of people were in front of him, so he just barreled through them. [00:02:15] He at one point walked into traffic and was nearly hit by a car. And there are a lot of examples like that provided in the exposé from people around him. By the way, in February 2023, he was readmitted to Walter Reed. And during the first few days in the hospital, he apparently was experiencing delusions. [00:02:32] He thought that if he took a bed at the hospital, he would be arrested. He told doctors that he believed members of his family were wearing wires to secretly record him. And he also grew convinced that a political rally was being held in the hospital's lobby, and that he needed to break out of his room to attend it. [00:02:47] He ended up staying there for six weeks, which is significant, and coming out of it, he was put on a psychiatric treatment plan, which seemed to help improve Significantly, although eventually concerns started to arise amongst the staffers that he was not staying on track with that and not taking it seriously. [00:03:03] The big issue seemed to be October 7th seemed to be some sort of trigger, perhaps in terms of social media. There's a through line in this exposé about his propensity for massive periods of doomscrolling and just being on Twitter basically all day long, [00:03:19] getting his news from there, responding to it, and spiraling into very dark depths of what are referred to in the article as depression. But we have more on that. I've already thrown out a lot. - It is concerning. - Yeah. I have kind of an ironic take on this story. [00:03:36] But first, just to clarify a couple of things. So he bought a gun. That's not that unusual. The reason why it's mentioned in this story is because his doctor told his staffers. Let us know if he buys a gun. Right. Because they're concerned about his mental health. So when he did buy the gun, they let the doctors know. [00:03:53] So, now, and the doom scrolling guys, that's not, just Fetterman. Please stop. Doomscrolling. Please, please, please, like you ruin your mental health doesn't hurt Trump. It helps Trump. So what's the point? [00:04:10] Right? Let's do something productive. Whether it's rebellion pack or any other thing that you think is right, right? That way you feel better because you're actually doing something to take power away from Trump. But just getting down, I mean, doesn't help anyone. Okay, now back to Fetterman. It's a super important story. [00:04:26] Look, my ironic take is that now I feel I'm going to beat up on Fetterman less. Okay? Like he's just the worst on the Israel-Gaza issue. It's unbearable. Right? But this brother's not well, like you read the whole piece. [00:04:43] I don't think there's any question at all. I mean, he thinks there's a press conference in the hallway in the hospital. There's no press conference that he's, you know, like all of that. No, no, no, he is not mentally well. So that leads to two conclusions. One is okay, now I feel like I number one, I understand what happened [00:05:01] a little bit better, right? Because it was such a dramatic change. Yeah. Right. And number two, so this is now a mental health issue rather than a we disagree politically issue. Right. And so but then that opens by the way quick side note. [00:05:17] And I'll get to the most important part. The side note is this might also explain Dick Cheney, like people had that theory about Dick Cheney, that he had the stroke and that he became a lot more conspiratorial and paranoid, and he used to carry around a hazmat suit in his trunk in the car. [00:05:33] I didn't know any of this. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And and he had the 1% doctrine, which is if there's a 1% chance any Muslims gonna attack us, we should destroy their country. Right? And here's Fetterman, right? So now that makes me super worried about strokes, so. [00:05:52] - Don't go hunting with. - Him. Yeah. Oh that's right. Don't go hunting with Fetterman now. So. Okay, now the most important point. He's gotta go, like. Yeah, we already had Dianne Feinstein, and we already had Joe Biden. No, this isn't right. This isn't right. He's not in the right state of mind. [00:06:08] And I know how devastating that is, don't I? Because it's Pennsylvania and we're going to have to if he really goes, we're going to have to have an election. And that's a toss up. That's a purple state, right? And I know how bad that is for Democrats. But as Yaz said earlier, we have to have principles. [00:06:24] If there was a Republican president who was clearly not mentally well, we would ask for an election, right? - I am. - Yeah. Well, that would describe a lot of them. Okay. But seriously, in this case, this is not acceptable and he's got to get actual help. [00:06:40] Yes. What do you think? Yeah. And as far as this country is concerned, which is really why we're talking about this, is because this is one of our sitting senators, you know, as far as this is relevant to all of us, I wonder what Fetterman's plan or strategy is going forward if he is even going to attempt to run again for his seat. [00:06:59] And whenever that time comes or, you know, is he planning on switching parties? Is he planning to leave politics altogether, perhaps for his health? Whether? I mean, at this point, I don't think he should be. I don't want to say he shouldn't be allowed to run, but somebody should step in and be like, you shouldn't run, you know, like somebody close to him. [00:07:15] And the people close to him seem to be worried about his physical and mental health. Either way, I can't believe that the people who voted for him initially are going to vote for him again. And I feel like I could have said that before this story came out. You know, this has been months now of this type of behavior, [00:07:31] but now we're getting more insights into just how bad it actually is. And, you know, to John, to your earlier point, this does feel very Trumpian. A lot of what he was saying felt very Trumpian. He's using a lot of the same rhetoric, the same conspiratorial, paranoid thinking. [00:07:47] That is exactly what stood out to me as you were presenting the story. And you know, I'm not trying to make any diagnoses for either of them. But regardless of what is causing this kind of behavior in our leaders, this is dangerous and unhinged behavior, and people suffering from these type of issues should not be in charge [00:08:03] of anything or anyone, especially in such high levels of government. And you know, I already have my feelings about social media and about the doom scrolling. Scrolling. I don't do it anymore. I quit, I very much off of social media as much as I can be, you know, still doing [00:08:18] a job like this, but it does, you know, kind of skew your sense of reality. It sucks up a lot of your time. And frankly, I'm not comfortable knowing that our nation's leaders are spending a lot of their days like this on social media. And this isn't a recent take for me. I have always found it concerning since, you know, for years now that Trump was [00:08:36] on social media as much as he is and was. And I do think it's weird, even that Elon Musk tweets as much as he does, even though it is his own platform. So I do think that it is a problem. Not only that American voters seem a little bit detached from reality. I say a little bit to be generous, but also that our elected leaders [00:08:54] are not doing much better in that, in, in, in that way. So a lot of issues going on. But really like we have to work harder to get better people in these government positions, people who are just a little bit more mentally acute than, than than maybe the rest of us. [00:09:10] Yeah I agree. I mean, when Elon took over Twitter, I started to back off a little bit after many people know for years I used it constantly. And then when I had my daughter, those two things just meant that I kind of couldn't use it for like a year. And, and thank God I haven't missed anything. [00:09:26] Literally haven't missed anything. I mean, I'm glad that I have communities I can talk to, TDR fans and fans and everything, but it is it is better. So I'll make that three for three on the panel. And and yeah, it's, is it any surprise that like, we're, we're ruled by these people that spend every waking second typing out insane, [00:09:44] conspiratorial like screeds online. And all of them have such obvious psychological and emotional failings, and they're the ones that have power over our lives, over our economic destinies. Something should be done. But unfortunately, they're also conspiracists. So, you know, if you go to to Fetterman and you're like, hey, maybe you [00:10:01] should back off and focus on your health. He will probably think you're part of the machine trying to take him down rather than somebody exercising empathy. Yeah. So one of our members on Tilt.com made a good point. Wang Zheng said, I wonder if this is why Fetterman was so defensive when people wanted Biden to drop out because of his mental decline. [00:10:18] I think that might have been personal. I think that's an excellent point, and I think that's very likely to be true. And look, guys, so first of all, if Fetterman doesn't want to go, well, he's not mentally well, that's that's why he doesn't want to go. Right. [00:10:33] And to to John's point, he'll think it's conspiracy, etc.. I mean, there's process for these things when someone's I mean, you got to impeach. You have to impeach. He walked into traffic, had no idea that he'd gone into traffic. He nearly picked a fight with a random group of people [00:10:50] because he just bumped into them. Because he doesn't know where he's going. He's. He is not well. We cannot have a senator that is not in the right state of mind. So it's not close. He's got to go. Yeah. And then finally on the if you want the opposite of Doomscrolling. [00:11:06] Look, I sense the doom and gloom in the country. So. And we started this a long time ago. We do things called operation Hope and operation Joy on the Young Turks. I know it's weird for a news show to do it, but it's because we've got to have a little bit of lightness in this world as [00:11:22] we fight back and as we're productive and try to do positive change in the world. Right? So check out TYT. Hope to see how you can get involved in positive change and check out Titcomb's. Just for stories of joy and happiness. That's all that it's there for. [00:11:38] You don't have to be a member. Just put in your own story. Even you know what? Instead of doom scrolling, do joy scrolling. Because those are all positive stories. And every time I read through them a title Joy, I literally feel happier every time. [00:11:54] So check that out. So you will not be surprised to find out that on the topic of, Palestinians in Gaza, a Fetterman's just the worst. He's really, really bad. That's in public, in private, maybe even worse, because he apparently back in early February, he met with the leader of the progressive Jewish organization J Street. [00:12:13] And he told Jeremy Ben-Ami, you can't reform a carton of sour milk, referring to the Palestinians and generally referring to a group of people, particularly one as oppressed as Palestinians. As food isn't good, but particularly when you're describing [00:12:29] as rotten food that you would throw away. He apparently said he didn't believe in a two state solution. Again, nobody's surprised to see that claimed he had never met an Arab person who would condemn Hamas. Notes from the meeting said. Correction only a single Arab he has met with that staff was present for wouldn't [00:12:48] outright condemn Hamas, but he took it as one person he met wouldn't do so. And in his mind it became there's not a single one who will condemn them. That's not good. He apparently in opposing a cease fire, said, quote, let's get back to killing [00:13:05] a person who heard the conversation, told the journalist. He said, kill them all, sounding similar to the allegations made against Pete Hegseth, saying at one point at a party supposedly that he wants to kill all Muslims now. He denied that account, saying he was referring only to Hamas. [00:13:22] But we'll also say, and this is one of the most uncomfortable parts of this entire story, and bear in mind, she disputes parts of this. But according to multiple sources, his his support for Israel, his opposition to the Palestinians apparently upset not only his staffers, but his wife Giselle as well. [00:13:39] Apparently, in early November 2023, she arrived at his Senate office and they got into a heated argument. A staffer recalled her saying with tears in her eyes, they are bombing refugee camps. How can you support this? And he said, that's all propaganda when it has happened many, many times [00:13:56] and is very much not propaganda. One former staffer recalled overhearing her on speakerphone that December, saying to Fetterman, who did I marry? Where is the man I married? And bear in mind, as we said, she disputes some of this same, saying that Jentleson, the former chief of staff who left and has been revealing a lot of this, [00:14:13] is part of a conspiracy to damage her husband's reputation, which, fine. Again, he's not the only source for this reporting. And look, talking about anyone's marriage is really uncomfortable. But that is what the staffers say they were there to witness. You know, what's also disturbing is that this person who is not mentally well, [00:14:30] has the same position as the prime minister of Israel and, The great majority of Congress votes the same exact way on that issue as a person who's literally mentally ill. Yeah. What does that make the rest of Congress? [00:14:46] - He has last word. - Yeah. Well, I was going to say, whenever you read about these very unhinged rulers throughout history and all these terrible things that they enacted and the reasons behind why they enacted these things, it really shows you just how fickle our all of our lives are, right? [00:15:01] You can get one person who ascends to a certain position of power in a country or wherever, and then they get unwell, or they start to become a little bit paranoid for whatever reason again. But then all of those, you know, their, their, their psychosis, let's say, for lack of a better word, is felt by the people. [00:15:20] Right? Because then they start implementing all these ideas. And I mean, even like there have been coups in entire countries just to bring it to more recent history where, you know, somebody was paranoid that there was communists down there. And so the CIA did a coup, right? But these are things that we know about that happen. [00:15:35] So it is just like a thing that is a reality of this life. And this world that we live in is that if you have an unhinged ruler, which a lot of times you will because, you know, these are the people who sought those high positions of power, and those are people who wanted to have that much authority and control over people. [00:15:54] And a lot of times there are some good leaders, too. But just generally speaking, you're going to get some of that. And that's why it's so important, like in this country, to have actual checks and balances, to make sure that nobody gets to overstep in the things that they're [00:16:09] trying to implement and execute upon an entire populace and sometimes upon the entire globe. Right now, our checks and balances are a little off balance, so hopefully we can get that back on track somehow eventually. But it is going to take a while. And in the meantime, we're all going to have to endure some some weirdness. [00:16:26] Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets its wings. Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.