A new report reveals that Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) snubbed disabled veterans and poor people, so he could instead pander to Republicans, right-wing media and pro-Israel groups.
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“One morning in June, three paralyzed military veterans in wheelchairs from rural Pennsylvania arrived at the office of Sen. John Fetterman for a long-awaited meeting to discuss legislation that would improve their care,” reported The Wall Street Journal’s Will Hobson and Siobhan Hughes on Thursday. “Fetterman’s staff greeted them with bad news: The Pennsylvania Democrat had to cancel. He’d told his staff he may have eaten something bad and wasn’t feeling well, according to people familiar with the matter.”
The Journal added, “Less than an hour after his staffers met with the veterans in his place, Fetterman walked into his office, showing no signs of illness. He had an appointment he didn’t want to miss, he told staff: an interview on Fox News to discuss Israel and the war in Iran.”
This, said WSJ, was not the only notable Fetterman snub.
“In April 2025, veteran Pennsylvania state lawmaker Anthony Hardy Williams brought a busload of constituents to Washington from Eastwick, a poorer, flood-prone neighborhood in Philadelphia, to meet with their representatives in Congress and discuss Trump administration cuts to a grant program that had helped the area,” Hobson and Hughes reported.
They continued, “Fetterman was the only one who refused to meet with them, Williams said in an interview. At one point, they saw Fetterman walking the halls and yelled, but he didn’t acknowledge them, according to Williams.”
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The Pennsylvania Democrat has repeatedly played footsie with Republicans, from accepting money from right-wing donors to vowing that he would not campaign against the Pennsylvania Republican who also represents his state in the Senate, Dave McCormick. He has also fixated on Israel as one of his main issues, vowing to leave the Democratic Party if it becomes “anti-Israel” and prioritizing concerns related to that nation’s interests more than most other matters that come across his Senate desk.
Fetterman’s pro-Israel positioning comes at a time when hate toward both Jews and Muslims is peaking in America. As The New Republic reported in July, “President Trump posted a captionless video of graduating kindergarteners on Truth Social on Monday, goading his supporters into verbally attacking little children simply for being Muslim,. The clip is from Gateway STEM Academy, a majority-Black K-8 public charter school in St. Paul, Minnesota. It shows about 21 children in caps and gowns on stage singing a song together. Most of the girls are wearing hijabs.” Similarly hate crimes toward Jews have been on the rise over the past few years.
Although Fetterman has equated criticizing Israel’s government with hating all Jews or all Israelis, Brandeis University historian Jonathan Sarna told AlterNet in March that it is wrong for so many Americans to blame all Jews for the actions of Israel’s government, observing that “if you wouldn’t equate criticism of the President with hating America, there is no reason — and indeed it is wrong and wicked — to do so with regard to Israel.”
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