A bipartisan CNN panel discussed Friday whether Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) was more suited for the Democratic Party, of which he’s currently a member, or the Republican Party following a bombshell Wall Street Journal report that highlighted multiple instances where he let down his constituents.
“You can have him, frankly,” Mike Nellis, former adviser to Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, said on Friday’s airing of “News Night.” “I’ll make you a deal. We’ll swap out [Mitch] McConnell and Fetterman.”
Fetterman, a harsh critic of his own party, is facing backlash after the Journal’s Thursday report, which cited more than a dozen former staffers and lawmakers in its investigation of Fetterman’s indifference to aspects of his job. The report suggested the Pennsylvania senator is more interested in appearing on conservative media.
In one example, the report claimed that Fetterman dodged a meeting with three paralyzed veterans by saying he was ill, but then appeared in an interview with Fox News to discuss Israel and the war in Iran.
Fetterman has already faced scrutiny from some of his left-leaning colleagues, but the anger has grown larger in the wake of the report.
“John Fetterman is a disgrace. Our state deserves better than a lazy trust fund baby who is too lazy to do the job,” Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) wrote on X.
Fetterman declared in May that he won’t switch to the GOP, even as his popularity with Republicans grows and his popularity with Democrats declines. But in June, he promised to leave the Democrats if they become overtly anti-Israel.
“He’s made it very clear he’s ready to jump ship if the Republicans need him come the midterms,” MeidasTouch’s Dina Doll told the panel Friday. “But the fact is, he will no longer be a Fox News darling if that happens because he does vote with Democrats most of the time, and Fox loves him because he criticizes his own party. Is he willing to criticize Republicans? Probably not.”
(Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
CNN host Abby Phillip asked her MAGA-defending colleague Scott Jennings if he would welcome the controversial senator, to which he replied, “I think you’d want all the votes you can get in a closely divided chamber.”
“I frankly have admired how Fetterman has shown backbone,” Jennings said. “He stands up to this angry mob that runs the Democratic Party.“
He went on to acknowledge Fetterman’s “constituent services issue,” adding that “the people, the members in either party that have the best constituent services, those are the ones that tend to get reelected and remain popular even in turbulent times.”
Phillip turned the question to GOP strategist Tim Parrish, asking, “Do you want him?”
“Uh, no,” Parrish responded. “He is where he’s supposed to be. Millions of Pennsylvanians voted for him.”
Nellis countered that Republicans want Fetterman to stay in the Democratic Party so they can treat him like “a useful idiot.”
“You guys want him because he embarrasses us,” he told Jennings.