Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz will meet Tuesday night in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for one of the most highly anticipated debates of this election year. Laurenjmayk has a preview. Decision2022
Oz, trailing in the polls, had pushed for more than a half-dozen debates, suggesting that Fetterman's unwillingness to agree to more than one is because the stroke had debilitated him. Fetterman has insisted that one debate is typical — two is more customary — and that Oz's focus on debates was a cynical ploy to lie about his stroke recovery.
His campaign has acknowledged the built-in disadvantage of putting Fetterman on stage with Oz, a longtime TV personality who hosted “The Dr. Oz Show” weekdays for 13 seasons after getting his start as a regular guest on Oprah Winfrey’s show in 2004. Fetterman's stroke happened just days before his resounding victory in the Democratic primary. Recovery kept him out of the public eye for much of the summer, though the campaign said he was meeting with aides, taking long daily walks, driving and doing household errands.
Fetterman acknowledges that he continues to stumble over the occasional word and that a common condition of his stroke — called auditory processing disorder — means that his brain's language network cannot quickly and accurately turn sound into meaning. That requires him to use closed-captioning during interviews and at the debate.