US Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) speaks to reporters in the Senate Subway during a series of confirmation votes for US President Donald Trump’s cabinet nominees at the US Capitol Building on 12 February 2025 in Washington, DC. [Getty]
US Senator John Fetterman is seeing an ongoing exodus of staffers over what some see as his fixation on Israel.
The resignations, two of which reportedly occurred on Wednesday, appear to the result of a longtime disappointment by his staff over the Pennsylvania lawmaker’s hard turn to the right since he was elected on a progressive platform in 2022.
This includes not only supporting Israel‘s far-right government, but also reversing positions on the environment and immigration, and generally turning away from his working-class base that got him elected in a narrow race.
NBC News reported that the latest Fetterman staffers to resign are Charlie Hills, who has been working as the senator’s communications director, who leaves at the end of this week, and legislative director Tré Easton, whose last day has not yet been announced.
“This is a guy who came in talking about being a champion for labour, and he’s gone pretty quiet on it,” a former Fetterman staffer told The Intercept.
“I don’t find this as a surprise,” the former staffer said. “I think the staff is probably frustrated that working in the Fetterman office means you’re just working on Israel all the time.”
The source added, “This is a guy who, since Trump won, is for lack of better word basically a useful idiot for Republicans. He’s supporting stuff, and it gives them cover to say, ‘Look it’s bipartisan, we got Fetterman.'”
Fetterman’s unusual preoccupation with Israel became front and centre when he draped himself in the Israeli flag during a pro-Israel rally in November 2023 in the wake of the outbreak of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
In other instances, Fetterman has been the lone Democrat to side with Republicans in close party-line voters. A recent example was a late January vote against sanctioning members of the International Criminal Court due to their charges against Israeli Prime Ministers and others in his coalition for war crimes.
Fetterman has gone far beyond the typical rightward shift that many lawmakers follow under the pressures of the office, with some of his statements aligning more with right-wing Republicans than with centrists. This week, he said that he fully supports US President Donald Trump’s plan to send US troops to take over Gaza, according to a report by The New York Post.
Before that, he expressed support for Israel’s September 2024 attack on Hezbollah through pagers, despite casualties of civilians.
Staff resignations at Fetterman’s office related to his rightward turn are nothing new. In March 2024, he saw several high-level departures. This was followed by a December 2023 statement in which he proudly declared that he was not a progressive, a moment that many saw as a departure from the left.
