OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Fox News host Tucker Carlson kicked off his monologue late last week addressing potential health issues involving Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman, a Democrat running against Trump-backed Dr. Mehmet Oz for a U.S. Senate seat.
Fetterman had what was reportedly a significant stroke earlier this year that took him off the campaign trail for weeks and appears to be still affecting his cognizance, according to some observers.
For instance, last week, he sat for an in-person interview but had to rely on closed captioning from a computer screen because he said he is unable to hear questions correctly.
“In small talk before the interview, without captioning, it wasn’t clear he was understanding our conversation,” NBC News correspondent Dasha Burns told anchor Lester Holt on “NBC Nightly News” report. And Fetterman himself has admitted that the May stroke has changed his life.
“I sometimes will hear things in a way that’s not perfectly clear. So I use captioning so I’m able to see what you’re saying on the captioning,” the Democrat told Burns.
Carlson said the excuses being made by Fetterman and on his behalf by other Democrats and left-leaning media figures sound a lot like those being made for then-Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden when his verbal and mental gaffes were being called out by Republicans.
“Now, it’s clear to anyone who listens to the president that his speech issues have nothing to do with stuttering. It should have been clear then, too, but nobody wanted to raise the issue. Why would anyone take the gamble in the first place, though?” the Western Journal noted in an op-ed.
The Fox News host answered the question on Wednesday, stating that if someone is “flatlining mentally,” they’re easier for party hacks to “control.”
Fetterman “had a bad stroke, and we feel bad about that. Everyone does, but because of that stroke, Fetterman now needs electronic assistance in order to communicate with other people,” Carlson began. “He can’t talk on his own. It’s not a right-wing conspiracy theory. It’s not QAnon. It’s real. In fact, it’s so real, his campaign concedes that it’s real. That it’s true. Fetterman uses a software program to understand the words of those around him and to formulate his responses to those words.”
For voters in Pennsylvania, Fetterman’s condition “does raise some obvious questions. For example, where exactly does the software end and John Fetterman consciousness begin? We don’t know. We can’t know, but it’s obvious that Pennsylvania could very well be sending a computer program to the U.S. Senate, where inevitably it will be hacked.”
Carlson played a clip from Fetterman’s NBC interview in which he said by January he’ll be “able to do this job on day one” and will be fully “on the road to full recovery,” pointing to a letter from his doctor — though Fetterman is refusing to release his health records.
“I mean, respectfully, that letter from your physician, that was six months ago. Don’t voters deserve to know your status now?” Burns asked.
“Being on, in front of thousands and thousands of people and having interviews and getting around all across Pennsylvania, that gives everybody and the voters decide, you know, if they think that it’s really the issue,” Fetterman replied.
Carlson pointed out that is not a confidence-building response and, nevertheless, “he’s reading that off a screen.”
“And by the way, we’re taking him at his word that there’s not a staffer backstage typing out the answers because he himself can’t formulate them,” he went on to say.“Now, again, you can feel deeply sympathetic to John Fetterman. That’s sad to watch, but this is a guy who wants to run the federal government in a body of 100, the most powerful legislative body in the world, and he wants to be a member of it.”
The host went on to point out that anyone who has been critical of Fetterman’s condition or asked questions about it has been attacked by the left.
“As New York City Councilwoman Rita Joseph put it, questions about Fetterman’s profound brain damage are, ‘incredibly ableist,”‘ Carlson noted.
“Ableist? ‘We desperately need more diversity in elected office, and that includes people with speech impediments.’ Well, we desperately need that. That is absolutely right, but actually, we’re not talking about a speech impediment,” said Carlson.
“She’s telling us he’s got a stutter just like Joe Biden,” he continued. “Remember when they told you that Joe Biden’s dementia was just a stutter? But of course, a speech impediment would not prevent Fetterman or Biden from understanding other people’s speech. Huh?”
Carlson then pivoted to concerns about Biden’s cognitive issues. “This country has a problem with age, so if you don’t like the fact the commander-in-chief, the guy who commands our nuclear arsenal, is deranged because of age — which he is — then you’re the bigot,” he said.
The host then revealed why he believes Democrats are coming to Fetterman’s defense: The same reason, he believes, that they backed Biden: “But underneath all of this is this single most cynical political move in the history of this country, and that is elevating Joe Biden precisely because he is fading away, because he is demented. That’s why they chose him … They picked a guy who had nothing going on upstairs, was flatlining mentally, so they could control him,” he said.
According to the most recent polling, Fetterman is leading Oz, but the race is within the margin of error.
