The White House declined to answer questions about Lt. Gov. John Fetterman’s health Friday, saying only that President Joe Biden was looking forward to appearing next week with the Democratic nominee for Senate in Pennsylvania.
Fetterman faced new questions about his medical condition after a media interview showed him using a computer to answer a reporter’s questions. The reporter later said that she was unsure Fetterman could understand her when they talked beforehand.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters that Fetterman, who is recovering from a stroke, is “someone that [Biden] truly respects, and they have a relationship.”
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Biden is scheduled to appear with Fetterman on Thursday. The two campaigned together on Labor Day last month.
But the president’s campaign schedule has included few stops in swing states with the most competitive Senate races. Republicans only need a net gain of one seat to retake the currently 50-50 chamber, which is under Democratic control due solely to Vice President Kamala Harris’s tiebreaking vote.
Jean-Pierre took questions about Fetterman while the president was flying from California to Oregon. Both are reliably blue states, though they each feature some at-risk Democratic candidates this year.
Fetterman is locked in an increasingly tight race with Republican nominee Mehmet Oz, a doctor and television personality who has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
Biden often mentions his Pennsylvania connections as a Scranton native no matter where is speaking. He won the state by a slim margin in 2020, but Trump narrowly carried it in 2016, which proved essential to his defeat of Hillary Clinton.
Some have decried the reporting on Fetterman’s medical condition as discriminatory against the disabled, comparing it to disqualifying from the Senate people who rely on wheelchairs or even eyeglasses. But the Fetterman camp has been criticized for a lack of transparency about his health since he suffered the stroke.
A reporter noted that Biden, who will turn 80 after the election and has faced questions about his own physical condition, has suffered from brain aneurysms.
Jean-Pierre would not discuss Fetterman’s health or the Senate campaign. She frequently does not answer election-related questions from the podium, citing Hatch Act concerns, though she will broadly attack Republicans and issue supportive statements about the Democratic agenda.
Biden’s top spokeswoman has been particularly outspoken about “MAGA Republicans” seeking to restrict abortion since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a major campaign issue in the midterm elections.
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Biden’s upcoming trip to Pennsylvania could be read as a sign that he is becoming less toxic in the battleground states, although his job approval rating is still underwater by over 10 points at just 43.2% in the national RealClearPolitics polling average. Or it could be an indication that Fetterman is in trouble in his race against Oz and needs any help he can get revving up Democratic base support.
The night Jean-Pierre faced questions about Biden and Fetterman, the two major party Georgia Senate candidates debated. That’s another close race in a state where Biden eked out a 2020 win but has yet to appear in recent weeks to campaign for Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA).
