Sen. John Fetterman will be the first Democratic senator to meet with President-elect Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, a culmination of the Pennsylvania lawmaker’s sustained public openness work with Republicans in Washington.
Meeting this weekend comes as Democrats re-examine their long-term resistance to Trump as he takes office. Fetterman has repeatedly said his party needs to stop hand-wringing and figure out how to get along with Republicans in Washington under Trump.
And while the moderate lawmaking model is a departure from his previous image as a progressive darling, it is more in line with Pennsylvania’s purple electorate, which narrowly supported Trump in 2024 — and twice in the last three elections.
“I encouraged my colleagues in DC and others, saying, ‘This is what democracy is all about. That’s how it works. That’s where we’re at,” Fetterman said in an interview with reporters last week at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, where he talked about meeting with some of Trump’s Cabinet nominees.
As Trump’s inauguration approaches, Fetterman has shown the most openness — and at times enthusiasm — to working with Trump of any Democrat in the Senate.
Fetterman, currently the highest-ranking official representing Pennsylvania in Congress, has met with several Trump Cabinet nominees, said he believes Trump deserves a pardon, and this week helped advance the president-elect’s immigration agenda by co-sponsoring a GOP-led bill, which the Senate passed the amendment on Thursday.
» READ MORE: Fetterman is a co-sponsor of Laken Riley’s GOP-led bill and is one of the few Democrats to support it
Fetterman publicly confirmed his future meeting with Trump in an X post in which he declared he was the senator for “all Pennsylvanians.”
“And because no one is my gatekeeper, I will meet with anyone to secure confident victories, including President Trump,” Fetterman added.
While his forays down the aisle have upset some Democrats who staunchly oppose Trump, Fetterman has also won praise from the center and right, including Elon Musk. A billionaire who has aggressively focused on flipping Pennsylvania to Trump in the 2024 election published in October this week, Fetterman is “fact-based and truthful.”
As an outspoken lawmaker known for breaking dress codes and partisan norms, Fetterman has been a media lightning rod for much of his political career, but his actions aren’t that out of the ordinary, especially for average voters who consistently say they want bipartisanship in Washington, said J.J. Balaban, Democratic strategist.
“You can’t be a successful politician in a purple state if you don’t respect the views of voters,” Balaban said. “And some Democrats have forgotten that exercising power requires some listening to voters.”
Fetterman and friends
In the Republican-controlled Senate, most of Trump’s nominees are individuals well prepared for the runway for confirmation. But Fetterman took the somewhat unconventional step of openly accepting some of them at a moment of political division.
Fetterman met with Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Agriculture, Brooke Rollinsand said at the Farm Show that he planned to vote to approve it. He said he also supports Florida secretary of state and senator candidate Marco Rubio; New York Rep. Elise Stefanik for UN ambassador; and former Wisconsin state representative Sean Duffy for transportation secretary.
Fetterman has even expressed openness to voting for his former Senate opponent, Mehmet Oz, as administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services if Oz protects Medicare. He also met with defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, one of the more controversial candidates for Trump’s cabinet.
Pennsylvania’s delegation in Washington has become more Republican with the addition of Sen. Dave McCormick and two new GOP House members whom Fetterman said he looks forward to working with.
“Pennsylvania is the quintessential purple state in the country and that really reflects what America is politically, so we will find a way to get along,” Fetterman said.
Fetterman added that he will miss his “dear friend,” former Democratic Sen. Bob Casey, but is “looking forward to building a novel one and working with [McCormick]” Fetterman and McCormick recently dined with their wives in Pittsburgh. (Fetterman lives about 20 minutes outside the city in Braddock, and McCormick lives in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood of Pittsburgh.)
» READ MORE: In 2024, Pennsylvania’s political pendulum has swung toward Republicans. Will it stay that way?
McCormick, Pennsylvania’s novel junior senator, shared similar sentiments about working with Fetterman in the post on X about their recent dinner where they discussed “where we can work together to best serve the PA,” including their shared support for Israel and their desire to end the distribution of fentanyl across the country.
A good practice is for senators from the same state who are in political opposition to get along well, said Ross Baker, a former Rutgers professor who has written extensively on Senate relations. And Fetterman’s openness to the Republican Party should make this task easier for the duo.
McCormick isn’t Fetterman’s only Republican ally in the chamber. One of his first friends in the Senate was Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), whom he met during his freshman year and whose office was close to his when they took office in 2022. Britt visited Fetterman while he was being treated for depression at the National Walter Reed Military Medical Center and the two bonded over the presence of young children and tall people in their families. (Britt’s husband is a former professional football player and is about the same height as Fetterman, who is 6 feet 8 inches.)
Now Fetterman and Britt are doing interviews on Fox News to promote Britt’s bill, the Laken Riley Act, which Fetterman co-authored. The bill would require federal detention of illegal immigrants accused of theft, burglary and other crimes and give state attorneys general greater authority over immigration policy.
His pressure campaign appears to be working. Several Democrats who voted against the bill last year now support it, a move likely fueled in part by the 2024 election where many voters turned out to push harder against illegal immigration.
Immigration rights activists have sharply criticized Fetterman and called immigration another issue on which he appears to have changed his position after starting his political career as an unabashed progressive.
“dream. “Fetterman really misses the bigger picture of how this will change the entire system and impact people who pose no threat to public safety at all, including DACA recipients,” said Nayna Gupta, policy director at the American Immigration Council.
Counties “75-25”.
As the Democratic Party searches for answers on how to communicate with voters after major losses in November 2024, Fetterman told a compact crowd of rural Democrats from across Pennsylvania at the Farm Show luncheon in Harrisburg last week that the party needs to talk to them, Democrats in GOP strongholds on how to move the needle in their communities.
“Less articles in the New York Times, more conversations with people who live in 75 to 25 types of counties,” Fetterman said after opening the room to local Democratic Party chairmen to share their ideas and complaints about the party.
Fetterman has long touted himself as a champion of rural and working-class voters, two constituencies that helped Trump win the state this year.
» READ MORE: Donald Trump won Pennsylvania with more votes than any other Republican candidate in history. Here’s how he did it.
The mostly rural counties in central and northern Pennsylvania that previously formed the core of Trump’s base have swung even more toward him this year. And in areas of the Rust Belt and former manufacturing cities, the white working class, which had leaned toward Trump since 2016, backed him in even greater numbers.
Introducing Fetterman to a compact group of rural Democratic leaders, party chairwoman Sharif Street praised Fetterman for “telling it like it is” and his ability to talk “about issues in a simple way that people can relate to.”
Fetterman said his party ignores the bleeding at its peril at the ballot box, which took place in more rural areas of the country.
“I truly believe in your cause and what you are consistently doing to ensure positive outcomes in Pennsylvania,” Fetterman said. “After what happened, it’s even more valuable now. And I will always show up in all these rooms to thank you for what you did.
Diane Bowman Shenk, chairwoman of the Perry County Democratic Committee, said she appreciated Fetterman’s comments about the importance of rural voters and his focus on those communities.
However, Bowman Shenk stated that she disagreed with his most controversial stance: his robust and unequivocal support for Israel in its war against Hamas, in which over 46,000 Palestinians they were killed.
He has known Fetterman for years and wants to talk to him about his position. He hopes he will change his mind.
