Fetterman blames flawed closed captioning for unsteady PA debate performance

Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman’s campaign blamed the stroke survivor’s uneven, sometimes rambling responses in Tuesday night’s debate to captions that were “delayed” and “filled with errors,” prompting a strong rebuke from its organizers.

The lieutenant governor, who suffered a stroke in May just before the primaries, was accommodated with live closed captioning, according to NewsNation, who hosted the debate. Both campaigns reportedly agreed to the arrangement.

But Fetterman’s answers in the debate ranged from canned but stilted to completely incomprehensible, including him wishing the audience “good night” as part of his opening statement.

Fetterman opens the debate:

"Hi. Good night everybody." pic.twitter.com/mg0X3Iwf5D

— Greg Price (@greg_price11) October 26, 2022

Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, tweeted while watching that, “This is painful to watch regardless of one’s politics.”

After the debate aired, Fetterman’s campaign claimed that his stumbles during the debate were due in part to flawed closed captioning.

“We are thrilled with John’s performance. He did remarkably well tonight – especially when you consider that he’s still recovering from a stroke and was working off of delayed captions filled with errors. John won countless exchanges, counter-punched aggressively, and pushed back on Oz’s cruelty and attacks,” Fetterman for Pennsylvania communications director Joe Calvello told reporters.

Nexstar, the parent company of NewsNation, responded in a statement defending their production, saying: “It is unfortunate that Mr. Fetterman is now criticizing the closed captioning process employed by Nexstar during tonight’s debate. Both candidates agreed to the technical set-up for the closed captioning process weeks ago, which was implemented at the request of the Fetterman campaign.

“Both candidates were offered the opportunity for two full rehearsals with the same equipment used in tonight’s debate; Mr. Fetterman chose to do only one,” Weitman continued in the statement.

“In fact, Nexstar’s production team went to extraordinary lengths to ensure the effectiveness of the closed captioning process, and to accommodate several last-minute requests of the Fetterman campaign. The closed captioning process functioned as expected during rehearsal and again during tonight’s debate. We regret that Mr. Fetterman and his campaign feel otherwise.”

A Nexstar spokesperson says both candidates agreed to the technical setup and had the opportunity to do two full rehearsals, but Fetterman only did one.#PASenDebate
More: https://t.co/XcoGY9cYFr pic.twitter.com/SAX6JqJaE6

— NewsNation (@NewsNation) October 26, 2022