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The Invisible Fetterman

The arc of the formerly progressive senator’s career has bent more and more toward the right, and away from his own party. Would he actually jump ship?

John Fetterman
The trajectory of Fetterman’s Senate career so far, in fact, has seemed to bend away from his own party, with which he’s grown disengaged, and toward Republicans, who have warmed to the guy. Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
Leigh Ann Caldwell
June 11, 2025

Senator John Fetterman is a serial instigator of mini-freakouts in Democratic circles—over his pro-Israel stance, his condemnation of his own party’s reaction to President Trump’s troop deployment in L.A., and now his chosen dinner companions. This week, as first reported by Politico, the Pennsylvania iconoclast dined with Steve Bannon and Breitbart’s Matthew Boyle at Butterworth’s, the Peach Pit of the D.C. MAGA establishment—a gastronomic decision that set the phones of Democratic aides ablaze with texts wondering what it all meant, and whether Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro could remove and replace him for failing to fulfill his job duties. (Absenteeism has also been a problem for the senator, who has suffered from a stroke and serious depression, though there’s no indication that Shapiro would deploy that option.)