Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Wednesday pressed Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) to remain a Democrat, as the influence of the party’s moderate faction in Washington is increasingly challenged by socialists and progressives.
Fetterman is viewed as a centrist maverick lawmaker more in line with Schumer’s establishment take on policies than with socialists and progressives in the Democratic Party, whose voices are growing louder in Congress and across the country. As tensions escalate between the factions, the Pennsylvania senator has recently suggested he could be open to leaving his home party, a move that would further weaken the establishment coalition in the Senate, led by Schumer.
Amid speculation that Fetterman may abandon Democrats, Schumer this week urged his colleague to remain in the party, arguing that there is room for widely divergent political views in the Senate caucus.
“People in our caucus very much like him and respect him, and we’re a big-tent party. We can have a lot of different views in that party,” Schumer told reporters, describing Fetterman as “a very good member of Congress.”
Fetterman has long denied rumors that he’ll switch allegiance to the Republican Party. But earlier this month, he said that should the Democratic Party adopt opposition to the state of Israel, he would be forced to leave. Some have pushed for the lawmaker to become an independent, following in the steps of mavericks such as former West Virginia Democrat Joe Manchin. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) recently said he had been in conversations with Fetttemran about possibly switching parties.
“My long-term concern has been with the Democratic Party, as I am a member of that, is that our party is going to back away and turn their back to Israel,” Fetterman said. “If our party ever becomes, and just makes it official, the anti-Israel party, that’s when I would leave because that’s been a moral clarity for me.”
Fetterman has particularly expressed concern about the rise of candidates in the Democratic Party who have embraced a strongly anti-Israel stance, including Abdul el Sayed, who has been polling well ahead of Michigan’s Senate primary on Aug. 4, and Darializa Avila Chevalier, a socialist who won the primary election for a New York House race in June.
Avila Chevalier has declined to confirm whether she believes Israel should continue to exist, and interned at a Hamas-linked West Bank school in 2014. Hamas is the terrorist group that has pledged to eliminate Israel and operates in Gaza, the area adjacent to Israel.
El Sayed has attracted controversy for repeatedly campaigning with Twitch political streamer Hasan Piker, due to his anti-Israel views, including comments in April that he “would vote for Hamas over Israel every single time.”
JEFFRIES THWARTS THE LEFT, OPPOSES ENDING ALL AID TO ISRAEL
“It’s just been the dancing days of the dirtbag Left,” Fetterman bemoaned during a Fox News interview in June. “The kind of people they are trying to run out of office, they are just good, traditional kinds of Democrats you would expect in New York City now.”
“You know, some of these candidates are outrageous. You have candidates, they’re ‘abolish ICE,’ ‘abolish the police,’ ‘abolish the border,’ … a pro-Hamas wing … just declaring a war on just regular Democrats,” he added.