Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt told John Fetterman that she “wanted to reach out and hug” him, adding that her “heart was broken” for the Pennsylvania senator after she read his recently released memoir.
During an appearance on the Fox News morning show, Earhardt brought up Fetterman’s book, Unfettered, in which he writes about the severe depression he suffered following a stroke during his 2022 election campaign. In the book, he reveals he contemplated ending his own life.
“We were reading your book and I took a lot of notes over the weekend and yesterday,” she said. “I wanted to just reach out and hug you while reading a lot of this because my heart was broken for you.”
Pointing out that the senator wrote that he was extremely depressed and had the “worst two years” of his life, Earhardt then quizzed Fetterman on his political shift since entering the Senate – which has made him a celebrated figure on Fox airwaves.
“You shocked a lot of us. I thought you were so progressive when you ran as a senator,” she stated before referencing a recent Fox News interview featuring Fetterman and Pennsylvania GOP Sen. Dave McCormick calling for a “return to civility” in political discourse.
“So, why the change? Was it because you almost lost your life? Your heart did stop at one point,” Earhardt added, wondering why Fetterman wanted to be a senator.
“If anyone feels lost or they’re in the throes of depression, I beg people, please stay in this game. I promise you, you will get better because three years ago, I was in the depths of that depression, and now I’ve emerged as a United States senator,” he responded. “And I’ve been, right now, in the front of the middle thing and proud to reopen our government, stand with Israel, and also I am truly grateful.”
However, before Fetterman was “Trump’s favorite Democrat” and a regular fixture on the conservative cable giant’s airwaves, Earhardt joined her network colleagues in mocking the then-candidate as he ran for the Senate against Fox-endorsed Dr. Mehmet Oz in 2022.
“So, Fetterman thinks I have the hots for him because I criticized him. He's not my type, obviously. I don't go for guys like that. What do you think it is about this guy? I don't get him,” Fox News star Jesse Watters snarked in October 2022, ridiculing Fetterman for claiming Fox was obsessed with him at the time.
“I think you're telling the truth about his record and he's using Fox to raise money because after he complains, he says, ‘Give $10 to my campaign,’” Earhardt responded at the time, blasting Fetterman over his then-policy positions on abortion, drug legalization and immigration.
Throughout the 2022 midterm elections, Fox News obsessively focused on Fetterman following his stroke, suggesting to viewers that the former Pennsylvania lieutenant governor was mentally and physically incapable of serving in the Senate.
The right-wing network’s primetime lineup, for instance, mentioned Fetterman hundreds of times during the run up to the election. At one point, Tucker Carlson wondered if Fetterman’s brain had been taken over by computers, rhetorically asking where “exactly does the software end and John Fetterman's consciousness begin.” Sean Hannity, meanwhile, claimed at the time that Fetterman was “severely disabled” and “not mentally capable of debating.”
In recent months, however, Fox News has drastically changed its tune towards Fetterman – largely due to the senator making a notably rightward shift, which has included him taking an overtly pro-Israeli stance amid the war in Gaza and regularly voting with Republicans in the Senate.
With Fetterman joining seven other Democrats in siding with the GOP to end the government shutdown without extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, the Pennsylvania lawmaker appeared on the president’s favorite morning talk show to talk not only about his vote but also about his new book, Unfettered, on Tuesday.
“I think my party crossed a line,” Fetterman declared about the shutdown, blaming Democrats for the military pay freezes and unpaid SNAP benefits. “That was a red line for me that I can't cross as a Democrat.”
“So senator, you came in as somewhat of an outsider and, by the way, I was totally wrong about you, I thought you were going to be radical and you’ve been totally different than that,” co-host Lawrence Jones said. “Who is running the show in the Democratic Party in the Senate and House?”
After Fetterman said “no one really knows” and that he’s “okay” with being at “odds with parts of my party,” co-host Brian Kilmeade played a clip of Sen. Lindsey Graham heaping praise on Fetterman during a recent appearance on Hannity’s show.
“I agree with him on several of the foreign policies,” Fetterman reacted, adding: “I follow truth regardless of the letter after their names.”
Meanwhile, asked by Jones if he was potentially considering a run for the White House, Fetterman instead said he’d prefer to “celebrate and find a way forward.” Given that he had once “reached the point” where he thought about taking his own life, Fetterman admitted he was wary of taking part in the “brutality” of the current political environment.
“And now I have lost the taste to fight and refuse to use these kinds of terms or derogatory terms,” he concluded.
Earlier this spring, following a bombshell report by New York Magazine that painted the picture “of an erratic senator who has become almost impossible to work for and whose mental-health situation is more serious and complicated than previously reported,” some progressives and Democrats called for Fetterman to step down.
“This email, a year ago, from Fetterman’s former chief of staff, and this entire piece from Ben Terris, makes clear that Fetterman should not be serving in the Senate,” Zeteo founder Medhi Hasan said. “Every Senate Democrat should read this and be asked about it - especially Schumer.”
If you are based in the USA, and you or someone you know needs mental health assistance right now, call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org to access online chat from the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline. This is a free, confidential crisis hotline that is available to everyone 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you are in another country, you can go to www.befrienders.org to find a helpline near you. In the UK, people having mental health crises can contact the Samaritans at 116 123 or jo@samaritans.org
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