Fetterman doesn't waver on openness to work with Trump, despite backlash from some Democrats

U.S. Sen. John Fetterman, the Braddock Democrat who was once a darling of the progressive movement, has drawn the ire of some on the left for his stances on Israel and immigration and, more recently, for his openness to working with President Donald Trump.

Just last week, protesters who gathered in Downtown Pittsburgh and elsewhere to express their displeasure with the early actions of the second Trump administration also directed some of their anger at Fetterman, targeting him with signs and chants.

But in an exclusive interview with TribLive, Fetterman doubled down on his receptiveness to purchasing Greenland, radically remaking the decimated Gaza Strip and cracking down on immigration at the United States’ southern border — all ideas being pursued by Trump.

“I am responsive, and I don’t see the Republicans as the enemy or absolutely the only thing that’s wrong with the world,” Fetterman said in the phone interview.

After Trump’s election win last year, Fetterman became the first Democratic senator to visit with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. Trump offered praise for Fetterman after that meeting over the weekend of Jan. 11.

While Fetterman might see his actions as following a tradition of good-­natured bipartisanship, some left-­leaning activists and politicians have expressed feeling betrayed by a man who once sold merchandise calling Trump a jagoff and who aligned himself with progressives such as Sen. Bernie Sanders.

“I’m a staunch believer that your apology should be as loud as your insult, and at this point I think I can unequivocally say that I was very wrong and that Conor Lamb would have been a far better senator than Fetterman,” Alle­gheny Councilman Dan Grzybek, D-Bethel Park, wrote on the social media platform X on Tuesday. (Lamb, a former congressman, lost the May 2022 Democratic primary to Fetterman, who went on to beat Mehmet Oz in the general election.)

The post was in response to comments from Fetterman signaling support for Trump’s goal of the United States occupying Gaza.

Fetterman offered some clarification to TribLive, stating that any intervention in Gaza would not be about “taking it over or taking ownership.”

The first-term Fetterman, who became Pennsylvania’s senior senator after former U.S. Sen. Bob Casey’s election defeat last year, has become one of Israel’s most vocal backers in Congress since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas. He has cultivated a close relationship with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu along the way. The two sat down Thursday, according to Fetterman, to discuss what’s next for the war-torn, 140-square-mile strip.

“We can’t allow billions of dollars to rebuild Gaza be taken by Hamas to rebuild tunnels or buy new weapons,” Fetterman said.

Greenland is another piece of land that has drawn the interest of Trump, who has said he believes U.S. control of the world’s largest island is important for reasons of “international security” and “global freedom.” Officials in Greenland, an autonomous territory of Denmark, have said it is not for sale.

Fetterman sought to temper outrage over the proposal by turning to history. President Harry Truman, he noted, in 1946 pitched a sale to the Danish government — a move kept secret until a 1991 media investigation.

Unlike Trump’s overtures, Truman’s attempt was never formally rejected.

“Obviously, I’m not suggesting that we invade it,” Fetterman said.

Fetterman has caught flak from Democrats on several other issues, including his support for the Laken Riley Act, which mandates the federal detention of illegal immigrants who are accused of violent crimes, and several of Trump’s controversial Cabinet appointments. He was the only Democratic senator who voted to confirm Pam Bondi as attorney general on Tuesday.

Fetterman is quick to note that he hasn’t abandoned his party. On Thursday night, he announced his opposition to two of Trump’s administrative picks, Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as head of the Department of Health and Human Services. That day, he had joined Senate Democrats in voting unanimously against Russell Vought to lead the Office of Management and Budget; Vought was confirmed with full Republican support.

As for the president’s hundreds of sweeping executive orders, containing everything from mass layoffs of federal workers to an order ending birthright citizenship, Fetterman said, “I ignore the vast majority of them.”

“There are things I’m not going to agree with,” he continued. “It would be a full-time job to complain or protest or push back on every last thing that’s said in the news cycle.”