FETTERMAN BRINGS OLD STYLE TO SENATE LIFE
Senator is back in hoodies following his hospitalization
Before Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., checked himself in to the hospital for clinical depression in February, he walked the halls of the Senate stone-faced and dressed in formal suits. These days, he’s back to wearing the hoodies and gym shorts he was known for before he became a senator.
Male senators are expected to wear a jacket and tie on the Senate floor, but Fetterman has a workaround. He votes from the doorway of the Democratic cloakroom or the side entrance, making sure his “yay” or “nay” is recorded before ducking back out. In between votes this past week, Fetterman’s hoodie stayed on for a news conference with four Democratic colleagues in suits, the 6-foot-8 Fetterman towering over his colleagues.
People close to Fetterman say his relaxed style is a sign that the senator is making a robust recovery after six weeks of inpatient treatment at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, where his clinical depression was treated with medication and he was fitted for hearing aids for hearing loss that had made it harder for him to communicate. His hospitalization came less than a year after he had a stroke during his Senate campaign that he
has said nearly killed him.
“He’s setting a new dress code,” joked Sen. Peter Welch, D-Vt. “He was struggling. And now he’s a joyful person to be around.”
Senators do occasionally vote in casual clothing — Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, for example, is known for sometimes arriving in gym clothes. But Fetterman’s regular attire is redefining fashion in the stuffy Senate. He’s turning heads on a daily basis as he walks the halls in his signature baggy Carhartt sweatshirts and saggy gym shorts, his hulking figure surrounded by much more formally dressed Washington types buzzing around the Capitol.
The senator’s staff had originally asked him to always wear suits, which he famously hates. But after a check with the Senate parliamentarian upon his return, it became clear that he could continue wearing the casual clothes that were often his uniform back at home in Pennsylvania, as
long as he didn’t walk onto the Senate floor.
Welch said Fetterman was quiet and withdrawn when he first came to Washington, and often sat in the back of closed-door caucus meetings. Now he’s standing up and talking, sometimes joking and ribbing Pennsylvania’s senior senator, Democrat Bob Casey.
Fetterman, Welch and Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., became friends at the freshman orientation, and those two colleagues stayed close with him through his recovery. Britt says that in those early days, Fetterman would only really engage if she started the conversation, but they bonded over having children of a similar age and the fact that Britt’s former football player husband, Wesley, is the same height as the Pennsylvania senator. When Fetterman checked in to the hospital, Britt’s staff brought food to his office next door.
Britt later visited him at Walter Reed, at his request, and found Fetterman to be totally changed. “When I walked in that day, his energy and demeanor was totally different,” Britt said.
Now, he’s loud and outgoing, she says — even yelling “Alabama!” at her down a hallway when he caught sight of her last week, giving her fist bumps and asking about her husband and family.
“That shows you the difference that treatment can make,” Britt says. “It’s just incredible to see.”
Last week, Fetterman stood alongside the other senators in suits to urge President Joe Biden to raise the debt ceiling on his own under a clause in the 14th Amendment instead of negotiating with Republicans. He also questioned bank executives at a hearing — dressed in a suit, as he does for committee meetings — and asked whether they should be subject to work requirements like those Republicans have proposed for food aid recipients in the debt ceiling negotiations.
Fetterman’s words are still halting and sometimes hard to understand, due to his stroke. He has auditory processing disorder, which makes it harder to speak fluidly and process spoken conversation into meaning. He uses iPads in conversations, meetings and congressional hearings that transcribe spoken words in real time, and when he speaks publicly he often appears to be reading closely off a sheet of paper. He rarely speaks with reporters in the hallways.