Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) confirmed Tuesday he has neither interest nor intention of switching parties, making his declaration to openly squash such gossip after he was seen engaging with President Donald Trump and Capitol Hill Republicans.
The Pennsylvania Democrat senator told Semafor talk about a potential flip to the GOP is “amateur-hour s‑‑‑.”
“If they think, ‘Oh, it’s going to be like a Manchin or a Sinema play,’ that’s just not true, and that’s not going to happen,” Fetterman said to the outlet via reference to former Sens. Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), who began their careers as Democrats but retired this year as Independents.
U.S. Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) sits ahead of the Presidential Inauguration of Donald Trump at the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2025. (KEVIN LAMARQUE/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
“It’s not going to happen. And even if I wanted to do that, this is a rocket sled to Palookaville to try and switch — I would make a pretty bad Republican.”
According to the outlet, he has stressed privately to Senate Democrats his allegiance remains with the party.
Fetterman met with Trump just last week and the new president described it as a “fascinating meeting.” As Breitbart News reported:
The Examiner reported that Fetterman and Trump discussed various topics in the hour-long sit-down, ranging from the border to how tariffs could benefit U.S. Steel.
“They’re going to make people that have steel mills do very well, and the people that work at those steel mills are going to do very well,” Trump said.
In a statement to CBS News on Thursday ahead of the meeting, Fetterman, who has repeatedly demonstrated he is unafraid to think outside the mainstream of the Democrat Party, declared that he had no “gatekeeper.”
“He’s a commonsense person,” Trump said of the senator.
“He’s not liberal or conservative. He’s just a commonsense person, which is beautiful.”
