A deep dive by The Wall Street Journal into the daily operations of Sen. John Fetterman’s (D-Pa.) office suggests Fetterman is far more interested in appearing on Fox News than meeting with his constituents, including injured service members.
In one especially startling anecdote, the senator reportedly blew off a long-scheduled meeting with three paralyzed veterans who’d planned to discuss their access to healthcare.
Fetterman feigned food poisoning to get out of the meeting, according to the Journal, which cited interviews with more than a dozen former staffers and lawmakers, along with text messages and other records.
Soon after the veterans left his office, the senator reportedly arrived in fine health and sat for a Fox News interview to advocate Israel’s position on the war with Iran.
Fetterman’s office didn’t respond to a request for comment from HuffPost regarding the missed meeting, nor did it reply to the Journal.
The senator has increasingly cozied up to Republican interests since his 2022 election, prompting speculation he might switch parties ahead of the 2028 Senate race.
Fetterman currently polls higher among Republicans in Pennsylvania than its own Republican U.S. Senator, Dave McCormick. Meanwhile, the same New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer and Siena University poll found just 22% of Democrats in the state view him favorably.
In July, Fetterman told HuffPost he’d only leave the party if Democrats “make it official” in the party platform that they “will never support aid for Israel.”
He expressed similar sentiments months earlier in an op-ed for The Washington Post in which he bemoaned the “fractured” Democratic Party and argued that “working across the aisle is the only way forward.”
“My values have not changed, and I have always turned to those kinds of ideals that defined being a Democrat,” he wrote. “I remain strongly pro-choice, pro-weed, pro-LGBT, pro-SNAP, pro-labor and even pro-rib-eye over bio slop,” he wrote.
