John Fetterman raised over $1 million after an interview with NBC

Democratic Senate candidate John Fetterman has raised more than $1 million since Tuesday, his campaign said, after NBC aired an explosive interview with the recovering candidate. Fetterman uses a closed captioning device for assistance after suffering a near-fatal stroke in May. His campaign hasn’t raised money as quickly since Dr. Oz’s crass gaffe, in which his opponent pretended to be connected by checking the prices of ingredients for an appetizer at a misidentified grocery store. While the interview itself faced backlash for using able-bodied rhetoric against the Democratic nominee, a subsequent comment made by the NBC reporter has since become GOP fodder for right-wing supporters trying to discredit the nominee in the contentious race. “In small talk before my interview [with Fetterman], it wasn’t clear that he understood what I was saying,” NBC News correspondent Dasha Burns said of Fetterman, though other journalists tried to dismiss the accusation. “This is just bullshit,” tweeted Kara Swisher, a reporter who recently interviewed Fetterman for her podcast and herself suffered a stroke in 2011. Addressing the criticism during a Facebook Live interview with PennLive, Fetterman said, “I always was very honest about saying “I need captions”. I know you’re talking and sometimes I’ll hear it, but if I’m being asked a very specific question, I need to know exactly what it is. If anyone wants to criticize me for this, they may be sorry, but the truth is that half of Americans who watch television also use subtitles.