Political commentator Mike Reagan told Newsmax Monday that he understands why Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., checked into Walter Reed National Military Medical Center last week to seek treatment for clinical depression.
Fetterman has struggled with the after-effects of a stroke he suffered while on the Senate campaign trail last May.
"You're talking to somebody who actually survived two strokes back to back within 24 hours about seven years ago," said Reagan, while appearing on "The Chris Salcedo Show."
"I would not have been qualified six months later, a year later, to run for office, and my cognitive therapist said to me, 'It's going to take about a year to bring me back.'
"So I look at him and I understand why he's depressed, because I still get depressed at times when you can't remember something," Reagan explained.
"Like when somebody says, 'When did you and [wife] Colleen meet?' And all you can come up with was, 'Ships sunk' and they look at you again and say, 'But when did you meet?' and you say, 'Ships sunk,' and then they ask you a third time and you swear at them and say, 'Ships sunk, dammit!'"
"And then your wife looks at the people and says, 'No, he’s trying to tell you Dec. 7,'" Reagan continued. "Because I connected Dec. 7 only with ships sinking [Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II], not with us, in fact, meeting for the first time."
Fetterman, 53, won the Senate seat in November, defeating Republican nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz during the general election, and replacing the now-retired Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa.
Fetterman overcame a stroke days before last May's Democratic Party primary and spent the months leading up to the midterm elections recovering.
The freshman senator has previously said the stroke nearly killed him and continues to suffer after-effects, in particular auditory processing disorder, which can render someone unable to speak fluidly and quickly understand spoken conversation.
Reagan said that, while Fetterman's situation largely makes sense to him, there is one aspect that he doesn't get.
"This is what you go through and you get very depressed when you can't remember things on a regular basis, so I understand why he's in there," said Reagan.
"But I don't understand why his family allowed him to run for U.S. Senate, unless his wife wanted to end up holding that seat, knowing that he would never be able to survive serving six years in the Senate of the United States."
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