Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has denied claims he lobbied against the selection of Gov. Josh Shapiro (D-PA) as Vice President Kamala Harris’s running mate.
“No, I never directed anyone on my team or anyone to do that. So that’s just not true,” Fetterman told MSNBC’s Ali Vitali when asked if his team had reached out to the Harris campaign with concerns about a potential Shapiro pick.
He added that any concern that “ever existed with the current governor has nothing to do with anything that’s been talked about or any kind of public baggage.”
Fetterman’s comments came in the wake of a Politico report published Saturday alleging that the senator’s advisers had contacted the vice president’s team to voice concerns about a Harris-Shapiro ticket.
The advisers reportedly suggested that Fetterman believed his fellow Pennsylvania Democrat was “excessively focused on his own personal ambitions,” the report stated.
One of the pair’s reported disagreements involved their time serving on Pennsylvania’s Board of Pardons together, where they clashed on the commutation process for convicts.
“Is this just one of those old political rivalries in the same state or deeper policy issues like ones you reference on sentencing?” Vitali asked Fetterman.
“If you’d like to ask, you can ask [Shapiro]. But I thought I was here to talk about, you know, where we’re at now,” Fetterman responded.
“I just don’t understand why we’re talking about a choice that was already made,” he added when asked about speculation that Shapiro was passed over due to his pro-Israel stance. “I was very clear that the vice president is perfectly capable of picking whoever they want. They have effectively unlimited funding. She has access to every Democratic expert, and she made her choice, and that’s where we’re at right now, and he’s right out on that stage right now in Wisconsin.”
“Why are we talking about this weird stuff? I don’t understand that,” he added.
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Harris announced earlier this week her choice of Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN) as her running mate.
The pair hosted rallies in Wisconsin and Michigan on Wednesday after kicking off their campaign in Philadelphia the day before.
