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On October 11, NBC’s Dasha Burns interviewed Senate candidate John Fetterman. She said it was weird because Fetterman needed closed captioning tech to understand her -- and in small talk, she said it wasn’t clear he understood our conversation. Fetterman had a stroke back in May
Fetterman stroke controversy
Twitter
On October 11, NBC’s Dasha Burns interviewed Senate candidate John Fetterman. She said it was weird because Fetterman needed closed captioning tech to understand her -- and in small talk, she said it wasn’t clear he understood our conversation. Fetterman had a stroke back in May
Twitter
The internet wigged. See, e.g., Twitter
Twitter
NYT journalist Kara Swisher went after Dasha, hard: “Sorry to say but I talked to @johnfetterman for over an hour without stop or any aides and this is just nonsense. Maybe this reporter is just bad at small talk”
BuzzFeed News
And disability advocates were really, really upset with NBC -- per BuzzFeed
Inverse
Inverse interviewed a neurologist. He said Fetterman has “some degree of aphasia” which means “some language deficits”. Using captioning is normal and it doesn’t mean his thinking is wack
Twitter
But political commentator Chris Matthews wasn’t so forgiving. He defended Dasha Burns by saying: “She was soft... She asked reasonable questions of a guy who cannot answer the question because he has to look at the monitor”
Free Beacon
Neither was The Washington Free Beacon: “Stroke victim John Fetterman still needs closed captions to understand questions”
Babylon Bee
And the satirical site The Babylon Bee joked: “Asked if he has cognitive ability to be a senator, Fetterman blinks twice for yes”
Rolling Stone
For his part, Fetterman spoke to Rolling Stone and called the whole thing “surreal” and “bizarre”
CNN
And in the end, it didn’t seem that voters cared enough about it. He won the Senate seat for Pennsylvania. CNN looks back at his path to victory -- including the role his stroke played in the campaign
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