Sen. John Fetterman (D-Penn.) on a new podcase is accusing his own party of being “toxic,” while suggesting it may be unable to win over white male voters.
The senator in an appearance on the Somebody’s Gotta Win podcast said Democrats have talked down to voters, and they are seeing that boomerang on them.
“I think [Democrats’] primary currency was shaming and scolding and talking down to people and telling them, ‘Hey, I know better than you,’ or you’re dopes, or you’re a bro, or you’re ignorant or, ‘how can you be this dumb? I can’t imagine it.’ And then, by the way, they’re fascists. How can you vote for that?” Fetterman told host Tara Palmeri.
He added that just because someone may have voted for President Trump does not mean they are fascist or “support insurrections and those things.”
“If you go to an extreme, and you become a boutique kind of proposition, then you’re going to lose the argument, and we have done that,” Fetterman said.
Since Trump’s November victory, Fetterman has become a harsh critic of his own party, and indicated he is receptive to some of the new administration’s policies.
At the same time, Fetterman on Thursday said he would be voting against two of Trump’s most high-profile Cabinet picks, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary and Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence.
Fetterman met with Trump at Mar-a-lago shortly after the election, stirring speculation about what his role may be with the administration. Following their meeting, Trump praised Fetterman as “a fascinating man.”
Just this week, Fetterman called the president’s proposal to take over the Gaza Strip “provocative” but added that it is “part of the conversation.”
Palmeri asked Fetterman how Democrats could win back white men “like yourself” as the 2026 midterms approach, but Fetterman seemed unconvinced there was a Democrat who could do so.
“I’m not sure if that’s possible, to be honest. I think that’s been seriously eroding for a while,” said Fetterman. He added that in conversations he has had with voters, many say it feels like “men are the problem, men are to blame, or their masculinity is toxic.”
“Once we’ve kind of turned [our] back on that demographic, it’s going to be difficult to rebuild and replace that with those voters,” Fetterman said. “I think that migration has been an ongoing phenomena for several years and that was front and center, you know, in part of the election in ’24.”
Trump won 57 percent of white voter support, according to exit polling from CNN, and about 60 percent of white men’s ballots, according to NBC exit polling. But those numbers were largely unchanged from 2020’s presidential election.
