Sen. John Fetterman was hard to miss as he trudged down the empty hallways of his senator office building in his trademark loose gym shorts and black hoodie, which is where Stevie O’Hanlon, an environmental activist and activist from Chester County, Pennsylvania, spotted him recently and took the opportunity to question his local state senator about a pipeline in his community.
Fetterman’s response was surprisingly hostile: The senator held up his cell phone to record a video of the confrontation and began taunting her.
“I wasn’t expecting this!” Fetterman said, feigning excitement. “Oh my goodness!”
As O’Hanlon politely pressed him about what she called a “change of heart” on the issue of a local pipeline he previously opposed, Fetterman stepped into the elevator, sporting a fake, concerned look on his face until the doors closed, ending the conversation.
O’Hanlon, co-founder of the progressive Sunrise Movement, was shocked.
“I’ve talked to Republicans who are a lot friendlier than that,” she said in an interview after a video of the exchange was widely circulated on social media. “The person we voted for is not someone who is going to ridicule constituents when they express their concerns.”
O’Hanlon isn’t the only one wondering who Fetterman has become. Since last fall, the first-term Democratic senator from Pennsylvania has transformed his political profile considerably. He now regularly attacks the left wing of his party, whom he once warmed to, and seems to revel in the outrage that results. He also seems oddly revered by right-wing media that once dismissed him as a vegetable and hurled sexist abuse at his wife.
Fetterman’s biggest break with the left came during the Israel-Hamas war. A strong supporter of Israel before the war, he decided early in the conflict to unconditionally support Israel and its Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a stance he has maintained consistently, even when provocative.
But there are other notable differences: Trump has taken a hard line on immigration, calling the surge in migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border a “crisis,” and he has disagreed with Biden on energy policy, criticizing Biden’s decision to pause approvals of new liquefied natural gas exports to allow time for research into their impact on climate change.
Fetterman is a staunch contrarian by nature, and his political image has always been eccentric, irreverent, and sometimes irritating to ideological purists on the left. His political game is to take a position and then speak out loudly, sometimes obnoxiously, on that issue. As lieutenant governor, he flew flags calling for marijuana legalization and LGBTQ rights from the balcony of his office after Republicans banned unauthorized flags from flying in the building.
But observers of Mr. Fetterman’s recent evolution also note a shift in his demeanor, as he has become more strident and, at times, confrontational in his portrayal of himself.
As Fetterman transformed into a politician unlike the one most expected, he lost some of the top advisers who helped him get to where he is today, who helped him navigate a tumultuous Senate campaign and ill-health that included a near-fatal stroke before he was elected and a six-week hospitalization for depression shortly after taking office.
Rebecca Katz, Fetterman’s longtime political adviser who was the first person to speak to Fetterman in the morning and the last to speak to him at night during his 2022 Senate campaign, had been at Fetterman’s side since 2015 but recently stepped down.
His first Senate chief of staff, Adam Jentleson, who had been his liaison to the outside world during his time at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, quietly resigned last month to assume an outside advisory role. Three top media liaisons have left Fetterman’s office, including communications director and aide Joe Calvero, who has been with Fetterman since the 2022 campaign. (Despite the departures of senior officials, Fetterman’s office overall has a lower turnover rate than the average for Senate offices.)
Left hand sparring
Some on the left have begun to publicly air their displeasure with Mr. Fetterman. After a Republican congressman insulted a Democrat’s appearance at a recent hearing, sparking a heated exchange, Mr. Fetterman spoke out online, ridiculing the entire spectacle, writing, “I once described the United States House of Representatives as the ‘Jerry Springer Show.’ Today I apologize to the ‘Jerry Springer Show.'”
Liberals were outraged that Fetterman seemed to equate the actions of Democrats with those of Republicans. Annie Wu, who worked on Fetterman’s campaign, responded in a post of her own: “I have previously said that the 2022 Pennsylvania Senate election is about voting for a candidate with empathy and character. Today I apologize to anyone who believed that.”
New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who was involved in the altercation, responded with a post suggesting Fetterman was a bully.
“I can’t comment on that,” Ocasio-Cortez, who is supporting Fetterman in the 2022 presidential election, said Thursday when asked about Fetterman’s change in personality. “That’s up to the people of Pennsylvania.”
Fetterman declined to be interviewed for this story, but he is perhaps the most reticent person when asked about his evolution, and he often maintains that if anyone had paid close enough attention to him, they would have known he was this person all along.
Fetterman has long had a complicated relationship with the left, championing some causes while challenging their purity tests. During his 2022 Senate campaign, he claimed he had always supported fracking, despite previously saying he would “never” support the industry. That same year, he also told Jewish Insider that he would always support Israel and be “committed” to strengthening the security of the Jewish state.
Former staffers and supporters suggest there’s a lot more at play, both personal and political. After being hospitalized for depression, Mr. Fetterman cut himself off from social media and the news in general, and at one point relied on staffers to edit videos to get him the information he needed. But his return to work and break with the left coincided with a rightward shift in the media, which at times has seemed caught in a vortex dominated by social media, the New York Post and Fox News, where he is receiving positive coverage for the first time in his political career.
Those who have worked with Fetterman also suggest his changes are calculated, and that he may be carving out a more sustainable, winnable path for the Democrat. Politically, his rejection of the left has worked in his favor, lifting him in polls in Pennsylvania. A recent Times/Siena poll showed him with 48% approval in the state, up from 44% in October and well ahead of Biden’s 41%.
“The left should welcome this,” said Rick Wilson, an anti-Trump Republican strategist. “His position on the left of center is much more feasible in the political sense going forward than John Fetterman shouting, ‘From the river to the sea,’ which I don’t think is in the minds of most Americans. The left should be happy to see something that works.”
He has become a sought-after figure at state party caucuses across the country, and in the past few months has been invited to speak at Democratic Party events in Des Moines, Iowa, Reno, Nevada, and Broward County, Florida, as well as events in Texas and Wyoming and at meetings of the Mechanics, Truckers and Realtors unions.
But his growing popularity also meant trampling over his long-established political brand. On the campaign trail, he positioned himself as a champion of the underdog and touted his ties to Sen. Bernie Sanders, the self-described democratic socialist from Vermont whom he supported in the 2016 presidential election. Now he proudly rejects the label “progressive.”
“I follow Israel”
Fetterman has come under fire from left-wing activists who feel betrayed by his uncompromising stance on Israel. Protesters have taken over his district office and begun calling him “#GenocideJohn” online.
Even as longtime and staunch Democratic supporters of Israel like House Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, criticize Netanyahu and call for reelection, Fetterman has enjoyed tripling his support not only for Israel but for every action taken by Netanyahu’s far-right government. He has argued that the U.S. should support any decision the Israeli government makes to wipe out Hamas, putting himself at the forefront of intraparty divisions over Israel despite having no deep knowledge of Israeli territory.
During an appearance on Fox News in early May, Fetterman was asked whether he supported Israel’s incursion into Rafah, a city in southern Gaza that has displaced hundreds of thousands of refugees due to the war. He replied, “I would side with Israel on that. I think they know the situation better than I do.”
He also criticized Biden’s decision to suspend arms sales to Israel amid the conflict, saying, “I don’t think we should withhold weapons of any kind. I have no conditions. I never have and I don’t think I ever will.”
Asked a week ago about his support for Israel, he told CNN: “If there are people who strongly espouse pro-Palestinian views, that’s fine. That makes sense. I’ve just decided to side with Israel on that.”
When Republicans invited Netanyahu to speak at a closed-door online conference earlier this year, Fetterman asked to be allowed to attend (and was declined).
This stance has earned him praise from pro-Israel groups in the U.S. and grudging respect from some conservatives. Next week he will be honored at a graduation ceremony at Yeshiva University, which has called him a “hero of Israel” for his unwavering support for the Jewish state.
“He ran as a progressive in a very polarized election cycle,” said Nathan Diament, executive director of public policy for the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America. “You almost expect emerging progressive members to be more or less unfriendly to Israel. It’s surprising and very gratifying to see Fetterman enter this race, stand firm and see this as a black-and-white moral issue.”
Fetterman’s supporters say he’s found a way to distance himself from the left while still supporting Democratic policies. He rejects comparisons to senators like Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona and Joe Manchin of West Virginia, who have positioned themselves as centrist independents by sometimes blocking major party priorities. Despite the rhetoric, Fetterman has so far voted like a reliable Democratic soldier.
On domestic policy, Fetterman remains committed to progressive values. He has primary legislative power as chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee’s Food and Nutrition Subcommittee, which oversees the food stamp program, SNAP. In that position, he has been forceful against any cuts to SNAP in the farm bill, which is up for reauthorization this year.
At the same time, Mr. Trump has aligned himself with Republicans, including some former foes, such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, on legislation to limit social media use in schools and on an amendment to the annual defense policy bill that would ban the sale of crude oil from U.S. oil reserves to foreign adversaries.
During the 2022 campaign, Cruz mocked Fetterman for his shaky performance at a debate after he suffered a stroke and struggled to speak because of an auditory processing disorder, greeting the audience with “good night, everybody.”
“In honor of John Fetterman,” Cruz said, taking the stage at an event in Tennessee shortly thereafter, “I think I should start by saying, ‘Good night!'”
