Nearly six weeks after he checked himself in for mental health treatment at a Maryland hospital, Democrat senator John Fetterman of PA is said to be set to return soon to work.
No specific return date has been provided by his office yet. But many on Twitter are speculating that Fetterman’s pictures in media don’t show the same person.
Senator Fetterman suffered a stroke in May last year, and his cognitive ability was questioned by conservatives through his campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2022 and beyond. On February 15, Fetterman checked himself into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center of Bethesda, MD, seeking treatment for clinical depression.
His hospitalization for psychiatric intervention renewed criticism from conservatives, who believe Fetterman’s campaign misled voters by suppressing information on the seriousness of his mental health issue.
The past Thursday (March 23), Fetterman’s office announced his expected return to the senate without giving any timeline.
The news of his unscheduled return sparked speculation again, and over the weekend, an interesting conclusion was trending on Twitter: Not Fetterman. Over Saturday night and Sunday morning, the social media platform remained abuzz with different pictures of Fetterman and the hashtag #NotFetterman.
The Twitter users were questioning whether the two pictures of Fetterman – one before his hospitalization and one after – are of the same person.
Much of the speculation was centered on the different facial and physical features.
A conservative Puerto Rican wondered if “they” could get a more believable clone of Fetterman.
Another skeptic of Fetterman’s pictures showed how the left and right sides of the person’s face in two frames didn’t add up when juxtaposed together.
Author Juanita Broaddrick, who maintains that Bill Clinton sexually assaulted her in 1978, suggested the need for a DNA test to verify that it’s the same person.
And Broaddrick wasn’t alone in calling for a DNA test.
Not all speculation, however, focused on Fetterman’s face in the pictures; some took notice of the clothing and wondered why the man appeared in the same sweatshirt in every picture.
Leftist publication Newsweek called the conservatives’ speculation over Fetterman’s pictures “a new right-wing conspiracy theory” and attempted to explain the apparent differences in the senator’s pictures by mentioning various factors that can cause differences in appearance, like lighting, angle of photography, and the way a picture is processed.