Pennsylvania Democrat Sen. John Fetterman won’t be in Chicago for the DNC.
Fetterman has butted heads with his party concerning Israel, never backing down or trimming any of his support for the country.
I disagree with Fetterman 99% of the time, but I won’t deny that he’s been a breath of fresh air. I respect anyone who won’t toe the party line.
He has no problem calling out fellow Democrats about Israel or corruption. His attacks on “Gold Bar” Sen. Bob Menendez are priceless.
Fetterman has also taken a strong stance on border security, denouncing fellow Democrats for calling those who want a secure border xenophobes.
Fetterman is his own person and won’t change:
“I’ve been frustrated by some of my members and how they’ve chosen to handle that situation,” Fetterman said of Israel’s war against Hamas. He didn’t specify which Democratic members he had in mind—presumably, the Squad and other members of the Progressive Caucus who have relentlessly bashed Israel. “I don’t agree with a lot of their views, but whatever kinds of political choices or any kind of political costs that I’ve incurred throughout all that, I don’t care.”He added: “I haven’t once even regretted any of that.”
It’s easy to assume Fetterman is skipping the DNC due to the overtly anti-Israel attitude within the party.
Fetterman’s communications director, Carrie Adams, told The Free Press’s Peter Savodnik she disagrees with his stance on Israel:
“I don’t agree with him” about Israel and Gaza, Carrie Adams, Fetterman’s communications director, told me in a phone call, after my interview with the senator ended.“I have a sense that his international views are a lot less nuanced than my generation, because when he was growing up, it was might makes right, and for my generation and younger who, of course, are the ones protesting this, they have a much more nuanced view of the region,” Adams added.
Now, I see some people making a big deal about it, but I honestly wonder if staff members 100% agree with their boss on every issue. She didn’t go scorched earth on him, either.
Fetterman told The Free Press that he chose to skip the DNC months ago:
“I’ve got three young kids, and they’re out of school,” the Pennsylvania senator said of his absence this week in Chicago, waving off the suggestion that he might not be welcome there. “That’s four days I can spend with my children.”The choice to skip the convention “was made well before that debate,” Fetterman told me in a one-hour conversation via Zoom—the senator at home, in the not quite one-square-mile, ex–steel town of Braddock, twenty minutes outside Pittsburgh; me in Los Angeles. He was referring to the June 27 Joe Biden–Donald Trump showdown that led the president to step aside and Vice President Kamala Harris to snag the Democratic nomination.
I enjoyed his last comment, especially since I just saw Motley Crue on Saturday:
“I’m not an advocate for any one specific kind of generation, whether it’s mine, or whatever, but I believe in the American experience, and they’re going to elect the right leader,” he told me.But then, he conceded the point. Smirking just so. Yes, okay, fine—Gen X will save the world.“Well, I think Generation X, we should remind everybody that Mötley Crüe”—like the countless kids who once flocked to their concerts—“can kick some ass.”
Generation X for the win.
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