Gisele Fetterman is sick and tired of the bullshit being spread by Fox News and other right-wing “news” outlets regarding her husband, Senator-elect John Fetterman (D-PA) since he won a contentious election over Republican challenger Mehmet Oz.
Specifically, Fox is now suggesting that Mrs. Fetterman is some sort of “puppet master” who will be the de facto senator from the Keystone State, even though the voters didn’t elect her.
The New Republic notes that Fox seems determined to undermine the new Pennsylvania senator before he even takes office in January.
That triggered right-wing attacks that have persisted ever since. A survey by liberal press tracker Media Matters for America found that Fox News’s primetime lineup mentioned Fetterman more than Democratic nominees in six other competitive races combined.
On Tuesday, Fox News host Harris Faulkner took issue with a photo Gisele tweeted of herself beside her Senator-elect husband who is partially cropped from the image (…the couple have a running joke that John doesn’t fit in photos).
A conspiracy theory was implied that Gisele was trying to steal the show (and maybe even the Senate seat) from her duly elected husband.
“First day for Senator-elect Gisele Fetterman,” said Townhall’s Mia Cathell. “Why is she even there?” asked someone called Bonchie on RedState. Both remarks were quickly aggregated with other jabs against Gisele into a digital story on Fox News’s website, which was followed by a graphics package of mean tweets about the Fettermans that Faulkner gleefully read on-air.
Gisele has seen and heard the hateful attacks on her, and now she’s giving as good as she got from Fox, slamming them and others in right-wing media as misogynists.
“The right-wing hates women. They especially hate strong women, and I think that’s what you’re seeing,” said Gisele of the ceaseless ridicule she’s gotten from conservative media operatives looking to define her as self-serving and suspicious. “The fact that a spouse of a senator-elect has been attacked nonstop for the past 24 hours and everyone’s okay with it and everyone thinks it’s normal … it’s not normal,” said Gisele after her first day on Capitol Hill.
“Since entering the Capitol for training, my inbox has been completely filled with threats and horrible things. And that’s because I’ve been a non-stop loop on Fox News,” said the Brazilian-born Senate spouse. “Hopefully it’s not like this forever … and hopefully it’s not like this for the next young Latina or person of color or spouse who enters this space.”
As a matter of fact, Gisele insists, she has never and will never seek to have a career in politics.
“Never. It’s not for me. It’s a very cruel world, and I am not cruel. I don’t ever wanna become cruel. I’m sensitive. I want people to like me. It hurts me when people are mean.”
