Democratic senator says there ‘needs to be space’ for Fetterman in party as Republicans come to his defense

Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego defended beleaguered fellow Democrat John Fetterman Saturday, saying "there needs to be space" in the party for the Pennsylvania senator.

Fetterman, who won election to his seat in 2022 despite having a stroke on the campaign trail, has been under fire from Democrats, even former staffers who claim to have witnessed erratic behavior. 

But Fetterman has also clashed with his party's progressive wing on Israel and other issues, and his supporters say it is his independent streak that is prompting the whispers. 

"There needs to be space for Fetterman and for other senators in our caucus," Gallego said in an interview in Pennsylvania Saturday, Politico reported. "He still is a senator that fights for working-class people. We may not be 100% in agreement a lot of times in a lot of areas, but we don’t have to be."

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Gallego was referring to Fetterman’s stance on Israel, his suggestion that Democrats need to work with President Donald Trump, not against him, and occasionally voting for the president’s nominees when other Democrats won't. 

The senator, who spent more than a month in the neuropsychiatry unit at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in 2023 receiving treatment for depression, has also been the subject of several media stories recently that claim he has exhibited strange behavior that has concerned Democrats. 

Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego said Saturday "there needs to be space" for Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman  (Getty Inages)

"This is so blatantly coordinated," media observer and Fox News contributor Joe Concha wrote on social media this week. He shared a link in his post to a Politico report claiming an internal Democratic poll found Fetterman’s popularity faltering in his part of the Keystone State.

The report claimed Fetterman had fallen below 50% in Democratic voter support in Pittsburgh, just a few miles west of Braddock, where he was previously mayor.

Fellow Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick, a Republican, called the reports "vicious, personal attacks." 

"He is authentic, decent, principled and a fighter," McCormick said. "These disgraceful smears against him are not the John that I know and respect."

Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas wrote, "The radical left is smearing him with dishonest, vicious attacks because he's pro-Israel, and they only want reliable anti-Israel politicians."

Sen. John Fetterman has been the subject of several media stories recently that claim he has exhibited erratic behavior, concerning Democrats.  (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images)

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Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa posted to X, "The media ought to lay off Senator Fetterman."

Gallego on Saturday warned that the GOP is defending Fetterman with the hope of bringing him further right. 

"In the Marines, we call these f----f--- games," Gallego said, according to Politico. 

Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick, a Republican, called the reports "vicious, personal attacks," adding of Fetterman, "He is authentic, decent, principled and a fighter. These disgraceful smears against him are not the John that I know and respect." (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

When asked by an audience member during the town hall why he did a fundraiser with a pro-Trump businessman, Gallego said the man runs "the largest venture capital firm in Arizona."

"We got so pure that we started kicking people out of the tent. It ends up there aren’t enough people in the tent to win elections," he added.

But Gallego also had harsh words for the Trump administration.

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"Be mad, stay mad and we fight," he told Democrats during the town hall of how to deal with Trump’s presidency. "How do we fight? We fight them in the courts everywhere we can. We fight in the courts because we believe in the Constitution of the United States. You believe in it, and the country believes in it. … We believe in the United States."