WASHINGTON—John Fetterman doesn’t know what his fellow Democrats are thinking.
That, more or less, sums up what the Pennsylvania Democrat had to say to The Daily Wire during a wide-ranging Monday interview in his Senate office.
Seated in front of a fireplace festooned with pennants from Pennsylvania colleges, across from a framed “Don’t Be A Jagoff” poster, Fetterman held forth on the government shutdown, foreign policy, and the strange convergence of issues that have made him one of the Upper Chamber’s most surprising bipartisan voices.
It’s not just that Fetterman doesn’t understand some of the positions his colleagues have taken — though, to be sure, he doesn’t — but that he literally doesn’t know what they’re thinking. And how could he? They won’t talk to him.
“Not a single Democrat reached out to me,” Fetterman said about the lack of response to his Sunday appearance on CNN’s State of the Union with Jake Tapper, during which he said that Democrats “need to own the shutdown.”
Fetterman suspects he hasn’t heard much from Democrats because they realize he’s “pretty committed” to what he says is a “pretty reasonable” view: that lawmakers should never hold the government hostage to achieve their political ends.
Still, as Congress barrels through the record for the longest-ever government shutdown, you would think Chuck Schumer might reach out to the member of his caucus who not only voted with Republicans to reopen the government 15 times, but has become an increasingly-vocal crusader against his party’s position.
So, has the Gentleman from Pennsylvania heard from the Senate Minority Leader?
“I haven’t,” Fetterman says.
Such is life for the self-proclaimed “regular Democrat,” whose refusal to toe the party line has made him a bit of a loner on his side of the aisle.
“I mean, honestly, I’m on The Daily Wire having this conversation,” Fetterman says with just a hint of incredulity. “I’m not having this conversation on MSNBC because they haven’t — I’d be happy to have this conversation there.”
The senator doesn’t complete his thought, but later on he says it would be “great” if “MSNBC decides to have me back on.” The implication is clear: when he started siding with Republicans, 30 Rock stopped calling.
Still, Fetterman has no interest in becoming the type of “Confirmed Bipartisan Senator,” bucking his party and making grand pronouncements about the need to cross the aisle. He’s quick to dismiss the idea that he’s some kind of Democratic Party gadfly, and brushes off comparisons to similar senators, noting that both Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney weren’t trying to keep their parties honest so much as they were trying to survive in hostile electoral environments.
So, no, John Fetterman has no intention of ditching the donkeys, not to go independent, and certainly not to join the other side.
“I’d be a pretty terrible Republican, you know?” the senator laughs. But that doesn’t mean he’s thrilled with how things are going with his team.
“I think the problem with the Democratic Party is, if you have a problem with a Democrat who supports Israel, who wants to secure our border, and thinks that it’s always wrong to shut our government down, then I think maybe the party has a bigger problem than I thought.”
Fetterman takes care to say that it’s the improbable fact of those three issues — Israel, the southern border, and the government shutdown — “converging at the same time” that “put me in alignment with more of a Republican view.”
“I ran as a regular Democrat, and my values haven’t changed,” Fetterman says.”What’s changed is, I think, the response after the Trump election.”
“We lost. We lost!” Fetterman says, repeating himself for emphasis. “And I think we really have to explore exactly why.”
“If it was partly the extreme things,” Fetterman says, doubling down on those positions would be a mistake.
It’s impossible not to think of Zohran Mamdani when he says this. The socialist upstart and likely next mayor of New York City has run a campaign in many ways reminiscent of Fetterman’s: focusing on the common man and embracing the fact that he looks different from everyone else on the primary ballot. But Mamdani shows no signs of moderating and offers no indication that he’ll govern like a “regular Democrat.”
But if Mamdani has Fetterman worried about the future of the Democratic Party, the senator won’t let on.
“New York City’s politics are not a model or relevant to national politics,” Fetterman says. “He will be the next mayor of NYC. That doesn’t change my life. And I don’t think it will change our party that wants to win nationally.”
It’s hard to square that sentiment with the actions of the Democratic Party, which in fact seems quite happy to sacrifice national victories to satisfy its Left flank. Take, for instance, the very shutdown that has Fetterman on the outs, which has dragged on this long in no small part because Schumer is terrified of being defenestrated by New York Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
It’s also hard to square that sentiment with Fetterman’s other comments.
“I’d like to remind people that every single union that’s connected to this shutdown has said, hey, open this up! Vote for the CR, get that out,” Fetterman says. “We’re a pro-union party. Why don’t we listen to them? Why is this controversial for a Democrat to follow the voice of the unions?”
“I think shutting our government down simply because we have to ‘fight,’ or because that’s part of this resistance, I don’t agree with it,” the senator adds. “And I think we’re gonna hurt the kinds of people who are at the center of our party.”
As long as the government is closed, getting things reopened — paying servicemen, funding SNAP — will be Fetterman’s main focus. But after that’s resolved, assuming the peace in Gaza lasts, and if we can get something done in Ukraine, Fetterman senses the next issue of contention looming on the horizon.
“Holding China accountable,” Fetterman says. “China is certainly not our ally.”
The senator is open to whatever President Donald Trump and his team can throw at Beijing, from tariffs on down. Asked if he worries that escalating tensions with China will put Taiwan in the crosshairs, he demurs, but makes a point of trumpeting U.S.-Taiwan relations.
“I’m a big believer in democracy, and those are our key allies: Taiwan, Israel, and Ukraine,” Fetterman says, noting that defending each country is “pretty much the same fight against these kinds of nations like China, Russia, and Iran.”
Here, Fetterman returns once again to bipartisanship.
“I don’t care who brings peace, whether it’s Donald Trump or Joe Biden, I’m gonna support and follow as long as they’re pushing for peace, through strength. Peace through strength.”
Peace through strength. Ronald Reagan added that phrase to the Republican Party platform in 1980, where it’s remained ever since. Like Fetterman, he was a union man whose frustrations with the Democratic Party catapulted him to national fame.
Fetterman stops short of declaring, as Reagan famously did, that the Democratic Party left him. But whether he’ll say it or not, it seems like that particular train may be leaving the station. And the senator from Pennsylvania doesn’t seem interested in running to catch it.
