Israel advocacy, conservative media ties dominate Fetterman’s focus
Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) shows little interest in his Senate duties beyond cultivating relationships with conservative media figures and advocating for Israel, according to a Wall Street Journal report based on interviews with more than a dozen former staffers and lawmakers, as well as text messages and internal records.
The report, published Friday, portrays a first-term senator who keeps a light daily schedule, frequently cancels or refuses meetings with constituents and colleagues, and has assembled a thin record of committee participation since he left the hospital in 2023. Fetterman did not respond to the Journal’s requests for an interview, and his office did not reply to emails summarizing the reporting. A Journal reporter wrote that Fetterman walked away from him at a public event in Erie, Pa., late last month, declining to answer questions.
The profile carries weight beyond Pennsylvania. With a pivotal election looming in November that could yield a split Senate and give Fetterman outsize influence, the report describes an office staffed by a revolving door of aides who scramble to keep up the appearance of a functioning operation. Fetterman, who often portrays himself as a “regular Democrat” calling out his party’s progressive fringe, has grown increasingly isolated from his own caucus since the war in Gaza began.
One morning in June, three paralyzed military veterans in wheelchairs from rural Pennsylvania arrived at Fetterman’s office for a long-awaited meeting on legislation to improve their care. Staff told them Fetterman had canceled — he said he may have eaten something bad and wasn’t feeling well, according to people familiar with the matter. Less than an hour later, Fetterman walked into the office showing no signs of illness, telling staff he had an appointment he didn’t want to miss: an interview on Fox News to discuss Israel and the war in Iran.
The report catalogs a pattern of cancellations and refusals. Last September, an aide told Fetterman that officials with the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia wanted to meet because they were worried about Medicaid cuts; he was dismissive. In April 2025, Anthony Hardy Williams, a veteran Pennsylvania state lawmaker, said Fetterman was the only representative who refused to meet with a busload of constituents he brought to Washington from Eastwick, a poorer, flood-prone neighborhood in Philadelphia, to discuss cuts to a grant program. “He was available. He just chose not to meet with us,” Williams said.
Another April meeting with state lawmaker Liz Hanbidge, who drove down from Pennsylvania to discuss programs helping the homeless and working poor in her county, fell apart when Fetterman claimed he hadn’t agreed to it; aides spent more than an hour pleading with him and then met with Hanbidge in his place, the report said. Fetterman did take a meeting that day with Bruce Pearl, the former college basketball coach and Israel advocate, who thanked him for his stance on Israel, Pearl said in an interview.
Fetterman’s attendance record drew public criticism this year. After media reports highlighted his paltry attendance at Senate hearings, The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board called on Fetterman to consider stepping down; records at the time showed he had skipped 11 of 12 full hearings that year of his assigned committees — Homeland Security, Commerce and Agriculture. According to the report, Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who had visited Fetterman in the hospital and brought him cookies, then told Fetterman he could be marked “present” by getting the attention of clerks and leaving. Through a spokeswoman, Britt said she merely explained that “most members typically check in and then go about their days with meetings, speeches, votes, and other engagements while they wait for their turn to actively participate.” Since last June, Fetterman was marked present at 26 of 31 full hearings of his assigned committees, though transcripts show he did not speak in 20 of them.
Israel has come to dominate Fetterman’s focus, the report said. Late last summer he told advisers he wanted to introduce a resolution forcing every senator to take a public stance on whether the war in Gaza constituted genocide, an idea senior staff tried to talk him out of. In September, Israeli Ambassador Yechiel Leiter suggested Fetterman write an op-ed explaining his support for Israel and said he would send points; embassy staff later sent drafted points, but Fetterman’s own staffers decided not to tell him, out of concern that publishing an op-ed drafted on the embassy’s suggestions under the senator’s name risked violating the Foreign Agents Registration Act. A spokeswoman for Israel’s embassy declined to comment. Fetterman dropped the issue, according to former staffers.
Fetterman’s isolation from his party deepened after he was passed over for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in late 2024, which former aides said he blamed on Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. By early 2025, Fetterman had almost completely isolated himself from fellow Democrats, refusing to participate in regular caucus lunches and meetings. When aides texted him in March 2025 that Schumer’s staff was arranging a special call for Senate Democrats, Fetterman responded: “I truly don’t care.” Schumer called Fetterman “an important member of our caucus” and said he was proud that Senate Democrats represented a broad range of views; the two had dinner together last month, a person familiar with the matter said.
In Pennsylvania, Fetterman has receded from public view, rarely interacting in person with voters during his three-plus years in office. After three police officers were killed near his hometown of York last September, he backed out of attending the funeral because it was too long, the report said. This summer, after nearly a year without a public event in the state, Fetterman agreed to two appearances organized by his Republican counterpart, Sen. Dave McCormick — in June in Philadelphia to promote President Trump’s child investment accounts, and last Friday in a blighted Erie neighborhood to discuss housing affordability, homelessness and poverty. Asked about cost-of-living issues like high gas prices, Fetterman pivoted to the war in Iran: “Why is gas more expensive than some people would like? Well, because we have a crisis over Iran,” he said, adding, “I do think it’s important to understand that Iran is the bad guy.” At the Erie event, he broadly defended his record as an effort to deliver bipartisan legislative victories. “We have to work together,” Fetterman said. “We have better solutions working together rather than just fighting.”
Fetterman’s shifting politics have made him more popular among Republican voters in Pennsylvania than McCormick, the state’s Republican senator, according to recent polling by The New York Times cited in the report, even as his unfavorability among Democrats has grown. In May, Fetterman publicly denied he was considering a party switch, but speculation has persisted, fueled in July by campaign filings showing he received money from a prominent conservative donor. “If our party ever becomes…the anti-Israel party, you know, that’s when I would leave,” Fetterman said.
Judy Hines, chair of the Democratic Party in Mercer County in rural northwest Pennsylvania, said Fetterman won his 2022 race by working his heart out, traveling to small rural communities and embracing people who felt left behind. “He won because he worked his heart out,” Hines said, adding that she was worried about what she sees as a transformation in him since the campaign.
In the background are concerns about Fetterman’s longstanding struggle with depression, which flared after a near-fatal 2022 stroke that left him with lingering speech issues. Last year, his former chief of staff publicly said Fetterman had stopped following his recovery plan, was damaging personal relationships, exhibiting paranoia and addicted to his smartphone, according to the report. Fetterman dismissed his former staffer as “disgruntled” and said his “ACTUAL doctors and my family affirmed that I’m very well.”