The New Yorker Radio Hour
John Fetterman on Trump’s “Raw Sewage,” and What the Democrats Get Wrong
Fri, 21 Feb 2025
Since the election, Senator John Fetterman—once a great hope of progressives—has conspicuously blamed Democrats for the electoral loss. Fetterman tells David Remnick that the Democratic Party discouraged male voters, particularly white men. He has pursued a lonely course of bipartisanship by meeting with Trump at Mar-a-Lago before his Inauguration, joining Truth Social, and voting to confirm Pam Bondi as Attorney General—the only Democrat to do so. But, despite Trump’s relatively high approval ratings, he lambasts the Administration for the “chaos” it is currently sowing in America. Fetterman sympathizes with voters’ widespread disgust with contemporary politicking. “Unlimited money has turned all of us in some way into all OnlyFans models,” he says. “We’re all just online hustling for money.”
Full Episode
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Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. John Fetterman has cut a unique figure in American politics since he came to national attention. He's from a well-to-do Republican family, and he emerged as a progressive Democrat, a fighter on issues affecting the working class. He seemed a sort of Rust Belt Bernie Sanders, rocking a hoodie and cargo shorts.
And he won the Senate race in 2022 against Dr. Mehmet Oz, who was endorsed by Donald Trump. And that was despite Fetterman suffering a stroke during the campaign. More recently, though, Fetterman has come to stand out in some very different ways. After the election, he went to Mar-a-Lago and met with Donald Trump. He joined Truth Social.
He voted to confirm Pam Bondi as Attorney General, the only Democrat to do so, and that was after Bondi gave every indication that she would use the Justice Department to pursue Trump's political opponents. Fetterman also gave his support to Trump's notion that the United States could one day take over Gaza and develop it as a real estate project.
Over time at the Radio Hour, we want to provide a deep as well as a rounded view of what's happening now in Washington. And Senator Fetterman, in both his ideas and his presentation, is an outlier among the Senate Democrats. So what is he doing and why? I spoke with John Fetterman last week. You went down to Mar-a-Lago to talk to Trump.
So tell me about your conversation with him in Mar-a-Lago and just as much, what was the reaction among your colleagues?
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