Gisele Barreto Fetterman, the wife of Pennsylvania’s Sen.-elect John Fetterman (D), hit back at conservative criticism over her role helping her husband’s political bid, especially after he suffered a stroke mid-campaign.
“The right-wing hates women. They especially hate strong women, and I think that’s what you’re seeing,” Barreto Fetterman told The New Republic’s “The Soapbox.”
Her husband narrowly defeated Republican Mehmet Oz in a big win for Democrats during the midterms, eking out a victory after a close and contentious race.
Fetterman’s stroke had become a key topic of criticism as his ongoing auditory processing issues persisted through interviews and on the debate stage.
Barreto Fetterman told The New Republic about online hate and right-wing vitriol she’s received in the wake of her husband’s win, including arguments that she was trying to take advantage of her husband’s elected office and steal the spotlight.
“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,” Barreto Fetterman told The New Republic.
She came under fire on Fox News for a photo she posted on Twitter of herself and her husband in front of the senator-elect’s office, facing accusations that she’d partially cropped her husband out of the photo in a subtle play to pull focus.
According to Barreto Fetterman’s New Republic interview, she and her husband have a running joke that Fetterman is too tall for photos.
“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,” she said.