To protect the ever-brilliant Sen. John Frankenstein — er, Fetterman (D-Pa.) — a Washington Post reporter rewrote a muddled Fetterman ramble and posted it as a quote. Apparently, journalism now means covering up government idiocy by pretending an official is actually coherent.
The actual quote: "Shouldn't you have a working requirement after we sale [sic] your bank—er, with billions of your bank? Because they see me [sic] pre-preoccupied when then [sic] SNAP, uh, in the requirements for works [sic] for hungry people, but not about protecting the—… https://t.co/rSpZKzMzFx
— Paula Bolyard (@pbolyard) May 16, 2023
Fetterman was attempting to question the former CEO of the collapsed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB), Greg Becker. The Washington Post’s White House economics reporter Jeff Stein tweeted, “Sen. @JohnFetterman (D-Pa.) to SVB executive Greg Becker: ‘Shouldn’t you have a working requirement after we bail out your bank? Republicans seem to be more preoccupied with SNAP requirements for hungry people than protecting taxpayers that have to bail out these banks.’” The issue? That’s not really what Fetterman said. Not by a long shot.
As PJ Media’s Paula Bolyard tweeted, the actual quote from Fetterman is quite different, to put it mildly, from what Stein claimed: “Shouldn’t you have a working requirement after we sale [sic] your bank—er, with billions of your bank? Because they see me [sic] pre-preoccupied when then [sic] SNAP, uh, in the requirements for works [sic] for hungry people, but not about protecting the—the tax papers [sic] you know, that will bail no matter [sic] whatever does [sic] about a bank to crash it.”
No, I don’t know what he was trying to say, either. But apparently, Stein thought he understood so well that he could write up what he thought Fetterman meant to say and treat it as a quote.
John Fetterman participates in a Senate Banking Committee hearing with the former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank. pic.twitter.com/uKILMfuilN
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) May 16, 2023
Fetterman rambled like Joe Biden in the White House during the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs hearing, “Examining the Failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.” The man needs to be in a hospital, not in Congress. It’s a total — and painful — joke that his family and staff keep trying to force him through the motions of being a functioning senator.
Related: John Fetterman’s First Subcommittee Hearing: A Train Wreck in Slow Motion
”Now they [banks] have — it’s in, a guaranteed, a guaranteed way to be saved,” Fetterman fretted about the government bailout of SVB. “By no — no matter, by — by — by how, you know. So it’s, it’s, you know, isn’t it appropriate that the, these kinds of — this kind of control be more stricter?” Unsurprisingly, his question was met with silence. Then he brought out the above clincher, where he compared Republicans’ proposed employment requirement for accessing SNAP benefits to, presumably, his desire for banks like SVB to “work.” All to save that “tax papers” money.
Isn’t it comforting that our economy is in the hands of bankrupts like Becker and senators like John Fetterman?
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