Sen. John Fetterman responded angrily this weekend to a recent Wall Street Journal report, which quoted former staffers and the senator’s own alleged text messages to demonstrate his waning interest in performing basic job duties. The Pennsylvania Democrat, per the report, declined to meet with constituents, balked at attending a funeral for three slain police officers shot in York County, and asked why he had to keep meeting with representatives from the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
In an exclusive response to CNN, Fetterman called the reports about his attitude the work of “disgruntled staffers,” adding, “Per usual — lies, half-truths, innuendos, smears and anonymous.” An anonymous Twitter account claiming to represent former staffers was also created on Friday, promising that the WSJ story was, in the Twitter account’s words, “just the tip of the iceberg.”
Fetterman, a first-term senator, has become, as one ex-staffer told Mother Jones last year, “Trump’s favorite Democrat.” He’s sided with Republicans on a myriad of issues, including voting against limiting Trump’s attack on Iran and taking a hard-line approach to immigration. He has rejected calls to shut down ICE and instead favors what he describes as “commonsense reforms.” (This despite the fact that his own wife, Gisele Barreto Fetterman, was herself previously undocumented.) He’s also a strident backer of the Israeli government at a time when many Democrats are no longer defending Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank; the WSJ report charged that he’s spent time courting conservative media and the pro-Israel advocates at the expense of many other constituencies.
Much of the discussion about Fetterman has centered around how much his decision-making has been impacted by a stroke he suffered in 2022 while on the campaign trail. A May 2025 story in New York magazine reported on what staffers said was an alarming series of personality changes over time. His former chief of staff Adam Jentleson wrote in a 2024 memo quoted by the magazine that Fetterman was, in his words, “on a bad trajectory,” and outlined apparent impacts on his approach to work and policy: “Conspiratorial thinking; megalomania (for example, he claims to be the most knowledgeable source on Israel and Gaza around but his sources are just what he reads in the news — he declines most briefings and never reads memos); high highs and low lows; long, rambling, repetitive and self centered monologues; lying in ways that are painfully, awkwardly obvious to everyone in the room.”
Fetterman has rejected reports from former staffers that he’s not fit to serve. In his response to CNN this weekend, he called the WSJ report “the third hit piece from disgruntled staffers” targeting him and claimed the cited text messages were “stripped of any context and circumstances.” He said that while he hadn’t attend the police officers’ funeral, he did express his condolences on Twitter, had flowers sent, and, in June, “privately attended a Tunnel to Towers fundraiser in York for the families.” In response to the allegation that he expressed distaste about meeting with the children’s hospital representatives, he said he had met with them “virtually and in person,” pointing to a photo he posted on Twitter flashing a thumbs-up in their presence. Staffers had reportedly told him the meetings were necessary because hospital officials were “worried about Medicaid cuts,” to which Fetterman reportedly responded, “Well I’m not.” In his CNN response, Fetterman said that comment had been “a dumb joke, and for that, I sincerely apologize.”
The new anonymous Twitter account—calling itself Former Fetterman Staffers—is, according to The New York Times, “authentic” and “a group effort.” The bio for the account describes it as a group of former staffers who are “disgusted with what he’s become” and are “here to share our stories & make sure Pennsylvanians know exactly who he is.” The account said it would share its first “drop” on September 14th, the day the Senate reconvenes for its next session.