Fetterman jokes about stroke to avoid responding to heckler about support for Israel

Sen. John Fetterman joked about his stroke as a way to get out of responding to a man who interrupted his comments at a Democratic rally Sunday in Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania Democrat was in McKeesport showing his support for Sara Innamorato, a Democrat who is running for Allegheny County executive, when a heckler in the audience started yelling at Mr. Fetterman for his stance on the Israel-Hamas war.

“Four thousand-plus dead children in Palestine. Nine thousand-plus dead civilians. Get off the stage,” the man yelled. “You have blood on your hands. Get off the stage.”

Initially, Mr. Fetterman didn’t respond, but then he said, “The joke’s on you. I had a stroke. I can’t fully understand what you are saying.”

The Pennsylvania lawmaker experienced a stroke last year during his campaign.

Videos of the incident on social media show the man being escorted out of the event by security.

Last month, a group of the senator’s former staffers called on him to change his stance on the war.

They wrote that his support for Israel “has felt like a gutting betrayal,” because on his campaign trail his “overarching promise was to ‘Forgotten Communities,’ — people and places that get overlooked, written off, and left behind.”

Mr. Fetterman has been a staunch supporter of Israel since the terrorist group Hamas launched a series of attacks that killed about 1,400 Israeli civilians, even though some of his Democratic colleagues in the House have called for a cease-fire.

Last week, Senate Majority Richard J. Durbin of Illinois became the highest-ranking Democrat to push for a cease-fire, though he insisted only in the context of Hamas freeing hundreds of Israeli and foreign hostages.

But, on Oct. 18, Mr. Fetterman rebuffed such calls, posting on X that “now is not the time to talk about a ceasefire.”

He called for support for Israel in their “efforts to eliminate the Hamas terrorists who slaughtered innocent men, women and children.”

“Hamas does not want peace, they want to destroy Israel,” he wrote. “We can talk about a ceasefire after Hamas is neutralized.

Outside of his office in the Russell Senate Office Building, he displays photos of kidnapped Israelis.

“My office will display every last one of the innocent Israelis kidnapped by Hamas until they are safely returned home,” he wrote on X last month. “We won’t stop sharing their stories until then.”