Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania says the left wing of the party wishes he would drop dead.
“What I have found out over the last couple years is that the right, and now the left, are hoping that I die,” Fetterman said in a Wednesday interview, according to The New York Times.
“There are ones that are rooting for another blood clot. They have both now been wishing that I die,” he said.
Fetterman, who suffered a stroke during his 2022 campaign that crippled his ability to communicate for months, has in recent weeks alienated supporters by calling for a solution to the flood of illegal immigrants at the southern border.
“I hope Democrats can understand that it isn’t xenophobic to be concerned about the border,” Fetterman said earlier this month. “It’s a reasonable conversation, and Democrats should engage.”
In the Times interview, he stood by those words.
“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have a secured border,” he said.
“I would never put Dreamers in harm’s way or support any kind of cruelty or mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people. But it’s a reasonable conversation to talk about the border.”
“Dreamers” refers to the children of illegal immigrants who are allowed to remain in the country through the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program created by former President Barack Obama.
Fetterman has also strongly supported Israel in violation of progressive dogma.
As noted by the Times, some of his former campaign staff called that support a “gutting betrayal” in an anonymous letter issued in October.
But Fetterman said his position has never wavered, musing, “I’m not really sure what part of any of this would be a surprise if anyone’s been paying attention.”
He added that he finds it “confusing” that the far-left doesn’t support Israel, which he described as “the only progressive nation in the region that really embraces the same kind of values I would expect we would want as a society.”
The senator has also won favor with conservatives by opposing the sale of U.S. Steel to a Japanese company and criticizing fellow Democratic Sen. Bob Menendez, who has been indicted for bribery.
Fetterman was at pains to project himself as a free thinker who picks from both sides as he wishes, noting that he displays a flag honoring American prisoners of war outside his Senate office as well as one supporting the LGBT movement.
“I’m pretty sure I’m the only senator that has both,” he said. “Can’t it be possible that it’s really appropriate to stand for both?”
Fetterman said he no longer considers himself a progressive, despite having proudly used that label in the past.
“It’s just a place where I’m not,” he told the Times. “I don’t feel like I’ve left the label; it’s just more that it’s left me.”
