Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is claiming he is “not a progressive” as he advocates for aid to Israel and says a conversation with Republicans about immigration provisions tied to an aid package to Ukraine and Israel is “reasonable.”
Fetterman’s comments came in an interview with NBC News published on Friday.
“I’m not a progressive,” Fetterman told the outlet. “I just think I’m a Democrat that is very committed to choice and other things. But with Israel, I’m going to be on the right side of that. And immigration is something near and dear to me, and I think we do have to effectively address it as well.”
Fetterman was arguably one of the most progressive Senate candidates to run in the 2022 cycle, and his comments mark a divide between himself and some far-left Democrats in the country who are anti-Israeli or pro-Palestinian.
Protests from anti-Israel Democrats have come to the forefront since the October 7 terrorist attacks, including at the White House – where demonstrators violently shook the gates and desecrated statues to the American Revolution with antisemitic graffiti – and outside the Democratic National Committee, which police noted turned violent, leading to at least one arrest. Both events underscored the divide that this has brewed on the left, as worry reportedly mounts about potential demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, Illinois, next summer.
While speaking about immigration, the former Braddock mayor and Pennsylvania lieutenant governor went on to point out specific numbers of encounters with migrants at the border, something Democrats rarely do, after saying border reform conversation is “reasonable.” NBC News’s Sahil Kapur noted that Fetterman believes he can advocate for ways to mitigate the flow of migrants at the border while also championing immigrants:
“It’s a reasonable conversation — until somebody can say there’s an explanation on what we can do when 270,000 people are being encountered on the border, not including the ones, of course, that we don’t know about,” he said. “To put that in reference, that is essentially the size of Pittsburgh, the second-largest city in Pennsylvania.”
He emphasized that not engaging in these talks would be to the detriment of not only Israel, but Ukraine.
“Progressives better do that because we can’t leave Israel — we can’t sell them out, and we can’t sell Ukraine out, and we have to deliver on this,” Fetterman said. “I just would very much like to get a deal to deliver this critical aid.”
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About Face via StoryfulOn December 6, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) brought a $110.5 billion bill for aid to Ukraine and Israel to the floor, but all 49 Republicans and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) voted against the legislation, prompting Schumer to switch his vote to no so he could bring it to the floor in the future, as the Hill noted.
Republicans voted against the bill for lack of border reform after talks with Democrats on the framework had stalled days before, while Sanders voted no because he is against aid to Israel being without conditions, per NBC News. Fetterman’s pitch looks to rekindle those discussions as the body needs to break the 60-vote threshold to advance the bill to the House.
Meanwhile, a $14.3 billion bill to provide aid to only Israel advanced from the House but never made it to the Senate floor, as Schumer had promised it would not. The Biden administration has said he would not sign the legislation should it make his desk.
While Fetterman claims he “is not progressive” based on his current stance on immigration and Israel, his record and positions on other issues say otherwise. During his time as lieutenant governor, the state’s Board of Pardons radicalized and recommended a staggering number of commutations for prisoners serving life sentences under his watch, as Breitbart News noted.
Moreover, he said during the Democrat primary debate in 2022 that there are “no” limitations on abortion that he finds appropriate and later doubled down on the sentiment in an interview with CNN.
“I believe that choice is between a woman, her doctor, and a God if she prays to one,” he told CNN in May 2022. “As a man and a politician, I don’t have a right to intervene.”
