What to know about John Fetterman, the Pennsylvania senator who talks about mental health

Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, the lawmaker known for his unconventional and irreverent brand of politics, is in the news again after a blowup at a closed-door meeting with union allies and former staff aides who aired concerns about his mental health.

Fetterman’s life and political career have been upended the past three years with medical scares, including a stroke he suffered on 2022’s campaign trail and a six-week hospital stay to be treated for clinical depression in 2023.

As Pennsylvania’s lieutenant governor, the plainspoken Fetterman became a popular campaign surrogate for Democrats in the battleground state and a force in raising small-dollar campaign donations.

Fetterman’s victory in 2022 ‘s Senate race was cause for celebration for Democrats, flipping a seat that was key to the party holding the Senate majority.

He ran as a hero to progressives, with a platform ranging from the legalization of marijuana to strengthening union and LGBT rights. But as a senator, he has made a rightward shift on some issues, prompting some former supporters to disavow him.

Getting his start in a tiny former steel town

Long before that, the Harvard-educated Fetterman, now 55, had made himself into a minor celebrity as the mayor of downtrodden former steel town Braddock, where he settled originally as an AmeriCorps alumni to set up a GED program.

There’s his unusual looks: he’s 6-foot-8 and tattooed with a shaved head, goatee and glower like a professional wrestler.

“I don’t even look like a typical person,” Fetterman once joked.

There’s his home: a converted car dealership across the street from U.S. Steel’s blast furnace.

There’s his casual dress: as mayor he often wore short-sleeve work shirts and cargo shorts. (As senator, his style evolved to gym shorts and hoodies, causing a stir in the chamber.)

There was his bare-knuckled politics: In 2010, he was arrested in a protest over the closing of a hospital in Braddock. Later, he performed same-sex marriage ceremonies before it was legal.

His attention-getting efforts for reviving Braddock helped land profiles in Rolling Stone, The Guardian, The New York Times and other news outlets. He appeared on Comedy Central’s “The Colbert Report.”

He gave Ted Talks. He has three school-age children and has spoken at length about his wife, Gisele, whose legal status later lapsed after arriving in the U.S. from Brazil as a child.