Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is criticizing veteran Democratic strategist James Carville over his warnings that President Joe Biden could lose the 2024 election to former President Donald Trump.
Fetterman made the comments in a wide-ranging interview published Wednesday after being asked if he was concerned about Biden’s slumping poll numbers in Pennsylvania and nationally. The Pennsylvania senator, who has opened up in recent months about the hatred he’s received on both sides of the aisle for his political positions, expressed his confidence that the president would win reelection next year.
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“I’m very vocal about this, too, while there are Democrats that are being very critical about the president,” Fetterman said in an interview with Politico. “I’ll use this [as] another opportunity to tell James Carville to shut the f*** up. Like I said, my man hasn’t been relevant since grunge was a thing."
He continued, “I don’t know why he believes it’s helpful to say these kinds of things about an incredibly difficult circumstance with an incredibly strong and decent and excellent president. I’ll never understand that."
Reached for comment on Fetterman’s remarks, Carville said the senator’s colleagues “apparently haven’t gotten the memo yet” that he’s not relevant.
“His colleague Sen. Casey asked me to host a fundraiser with him last week,” Carville said in a statement to the outlet. “Sen. Brown asked me to go to Cleveland to campaign with him.”
“I’m glad he’s feeling better,” he added of Fetterman.
The Pennsylvania senator spent his first few months in office largely keeping a lower profile than he had during his Senate bid, before checking in to a hospital for six weeks to receive treatment for clinical depression in February. Fetterman returned to work appearing far more comfortable engaging with colleagues and the media.
That engagement included taking on critics of his casual fashion sense, which prompted Democratic leadership to alter the Senate dress code, and leading the campaign to force Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ) from his seat after being hit with bribery and FARA charges.
Both matters put him at odds with a number of his Democratic colleagues, though neither issue created as much controversy within the party’s base as his position on Israel.
Fetterman has been unapologetically vocal about his support for Israel since Hamas carried out its Oct. 7 attack, as well as his opposition to a ceasefire despite the idea having support among progressives in the House. He has also come out in support of increased border security, drawing the ire of the left flank of his party.
Speaking to the Washington Examiner earlier this month, Fetterman pushed back on the notion that his position on immigration lacked compassion, noting that: "I just think somebody [should] come up with a solution when 270,000 individuals were encountered at the border in a month. What about the ones that we didn't see or anything? Are they okay? Are they being serviced? Is it children? Is it women? Do they need help? I can't imagine the circumstances that they're in.
"To put that in perspective, 270,000 people, that's essentially the size of Pittsburgh, and that's the second largest city in my state," he added. "It's a conversation that we need to have. I challenge anybody to be a more pro-immigration member of this entire body."
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He said in an interview published last week that he now rejects the progressive label he once held, likening the hatred he was receiving from Democrats to the vitriol he faced from Republicans during his 2022 campaign after suffering a stroke that nearly took him off the trail.
“What I have found out over the last couple years is that the Right, and now the Left, are hoping that I die,” Fetterman said last Wednesday. “There are ones that are rooting for another blood clot. They have both now been wishing that I die.”