An X account claiming to be run by former staffers of John Fetterman says it is preparing to release troubling details about his congressional conduct following a Wall Street Journal report alleging that the Democratic senator for Pennsylvania displays "little interest" in his Capitol Hill duties. According to the bio, the account, which two former staffers confirmed to The New York Times as authentic and a group effort, was started to "share our stories & make sure Pennsylvanians know exactly who [Fetterman] is." "Hello, Twitter. We’re a group of former campaign & Senate staffers for John Fetterman who are disgusted with what he's become," it posted on September 4.
"If you were troubled by yesterday's Wall Street Journal story…trust us, that's just the tip of the iceberg. It's even worse than you thought." In a separate post, "Former Fetterman Staffers" encouraged followers to look out for the "stories (and screenshots)" it will be releasing on Monday, September 14, the day the Senate reconvenes after its five-week summer recess. It added that Fetterman could "skip Monday's votes" and delay the release, however.
The account has already amassed over 162,000 followers as of Monday, despite only being launched following the Journal report alleging, based largely on interviews with former staffers, that Fetterman displays "little interest" in his congressional duties "beyond cultivating relationships with conservative media figures and advocating for Israel." Fetterman has called the profile of him a "hit piece" fueled by the accounts of "disgruntled staffers," and in a statement to CNN said it relied on "lies, half-truths, innuendos, smears" and anonymous sources. Newsweek has contacted the senator’s D.C. office for further comment, and will update this story if a response is received. Fetterman, who was elected in 2022, has been facing pressure to step down from his Senate seat following the Journal report, which alleged a long-running pattern of apathy about his Senate work.
Key allegations include claims that Fetterman routinely skips important hearings, is more concerned with media appearances and his pro-Israel advocacy than constituency work, and that he has avoided and canceled meetings with constituents and certain groups. One example was officials from the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) who were hoping to discuss vaccines and cuts to Medicaid last September, but whom Fetterman allegedly stood up and accused of "just want[ing] free trips to D.C." Fetterman said the text messages cited in the report were "stripped of any context and circumstances," though he acknowledged sending the text concerning CHOP officials, telling CNN it was a "dumb joke, and for that, I sincerely apologize." He added that he meets with Pennsylvania health officials "virtually and in person." A former Fetterman staffer, who was granted anonymity to discuss their time working for the senator due to the nature of their current employment, corroborated details of the Journal report in an interview with Newsweek. As well as a general avoidance of Pennsylvania-specific matters and his native state in general—“he does almost no state travel"—the person said that they came to see Fetterman as someone with "very little empathy," who must "be begged to do the basics of his job" and who is rarely prepared to engage with anything "that was not Israel-related." The former aide also described the episode involving the children’s hospital officials as particularly disheartening.
"These are children, these are cancer patients, representing an organization that has been devastated in the past year by the [Donald] Trump administration and cuts made by Republicans in Congress," the person said. "And you have woken up today and decided that that’s not worth your time." The characterization presented by the former staffer was one of a Capitol Hill office under extreme strain, revolving around someone his employees believe has no "desire or an interest or a passion for public service, and instead is really out for himself and what he can extract out of this job." In managing the office, the person said that longer-serving staff adopted a "strategy" of "trying to contain" Fetterman—limiting his interactions with junior employees and others "because they wanted to protect those people from the unpleasantness that would entail." According to LegiStorm, Fetterman boasts the third-highest staff turnover rate in the Senate this year—behind Republicans Bill Cassidy and Thom Tillis—and his former staffer told Newsweek that "75 percent" of those who currently work under the senator are "looking for something else." "So, it's not a place where people are necessarily happy to be in, but they're all committed to public service, and they do the best that they can under the circumstances," the former staffer said. LegiStorm’s data suggest that Fetterman’s office is not an outlier on staff turnover when measured by its turnover index: a recent listing put his legislative turnover index at 0.27, compared with a Senate average of 0.28.
That comparison provides important context for the unusually visible series of departures from his office: while the exits may look striking because several involved senior aides, the broader LegiStorm measure indicates that the office’s overall turnover was roughly in line with the Senate as a whole, rather than dramatically higher. Though he arrived in Washington as a progressive Democrat and longtime supporter of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Fetterman’s public statements show increasing disillusionment with the left wing of his party and growing proximity to the GOP. This has been manifested in his shifting appeal among voters.
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