‘Wishing that I die’: Fetterman’s shocking comment on hatred he is getting from his own party

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is speaking out on the backlash and threats he’s received from breaking with very progressive members of the Democratic Party by unequivocally supporting Israel and calling for tougher border control.

Fetterman received an endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), a self-described Democratic Socialist, for lieutenant governor in 2018. His Republican opponent Mehmet Oz in the 2022 Senate race often compared Fetterman to Sanders, warning voters the two will be close in the chamber if he’s elected.

BOEM HOLDS DELAYED GULF OF MEXICO OIL AND GAS LEASE SALE

He’s now rejecting the progressive label, telling the New York Times in an interview published Thursday that the Left is now turning on him.

“What I have found out over the last couple years is that the Right, and now the Left, are hoping that I die,” Fetterman told the New York Times in a Zoom interview on Wednesday. “There are ones that are rooting for another blood clot. They have both now been wishing that I die.”

With his unique personal and political appeal, Fetterman once widely appealed to blue-collar workers and younger people in Pennsylvania. The freshman suffered a near-fatal stroke last May before winning the Senate nomination and was open about dealing with depression on and off — spending five weeks hospitalized for depression at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center before being discharged at the end of May.

Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attack, Fetterman has been vocal about his staunch support of Israel despite some of his Democratic colleagues criticizing the Israeli government’s handling of the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrations have broken out at campaign events, and Fetterman’s former campaign staffers sent him a letter calling on him to support a ceasefire in Gaza, which he has strongly opposed.

“I do find it confusing where the very left progressives in America don’t seem to want to support really the only progressive nation in the region that really embraces the same kind of values I would expect we would want as a society,” Fetterman said of the pro-Palestinian demonstrators.

Regarding his former campaign staffer’s letter, Fetterman said, “It’s difficult to respect somebody’s opinion if they’re not going to attach their name to it” and added none of his current aides have raised such an issue.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Fetterman has recently called out his Democratic colleagues for their resistance to more border security and pushed lawmakers to work with Republicans on the issue.

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have a secured border,” Fetterman said. “I would never put Dreamers in harm’s way, or support any kind of cruelty or mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of people. But it’s a reasonable conversation to talk about the border.”