Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) joined Reason magazine’s Nick Gillespie for the latest episode of the Reason Interview podcast and pulled no punches in blasting the base of his Democratic Party, which he warned is becoming “increasingly anti-American.”

Fetterman and Gillespie covered a range of topics, including Fetterman explaining why he is an avowed capitalist and deeply opposes any move toward embracing socialism or communism on the left.

Gillespie asked Fetterman how that mantra jives with his past political endorsements.

“Can I ask you, what about your own personal evolution then? Because in 2016, you endorsed Bernie Sanders in the primaries for the Democratic Party. He’s an avowed democratic socialist or a socialist at various points, he’s called himself, you know. What is it that rubbed you the wrong way about socialists or communists?” Gillespie pressed.

“Well, I mean, you know, in 2016, it was much more about the minimum wage and some other very basic kinds of thing. And now that’s, that’s just turned into much more standing with like Cuba, standing with Venezuela, standing with the Iranian regime and, and turn that into much more becoming more increasingly anti-American for me. So my views really haven’t changed that much,” Fetterman replied, adding:

Things that, that I supported, I was very supported [sic] about gay rights, you know, thing back in 2013, even before you and I, well, it would have been a couple of years. Yeah, you know, I was officializing a gay marriage when that was illegal and I was, I was happy to get arrested on that. So my views really haven’t changed.

What’s really changed is, is the party. And in 2024, I was campaigning for Kamala Harris there as a Democrat. It was very clear we were going to lose.

And a lot of the excesses that we’ve had in 2020 came back to revisit. And that really, I think, cost us that election in 2024.

I’m sorry, Nick, let me say, the excess of the party back then summoned the second term of the Trump administration.

“Yeah, you’ve said that the Democratic Party has become anti-man or anti-men. What forms does that take? And again, I mean, you can say, okay, well, extremists in the party are driving it,” Gillespie added, asking:

But what is the motivating factor? Like, you know, what is going on that people are lurching, Democrats are lurching very far to the left in terms of economic policy, but also identity politics?

“Well, if you make someone feel uncomfortable or unwelcome, they will leave, and they’ve done that. Back in 2016, I’ve witnessed that,” Fetterman replied, adding:

I lived directly across the street from a steel mill and the union hall.

And I was doing an event for Secretary Clinton at that time. And I was asking the union president, well, where’s your people on that? He’s like at least half, half if not more are in Trump.

And there was just coincidentally a guy in a big truck drove by, and he honked, ‘Go Trump, Go Trump.’ And he had truck nuts on the trailer and had a Trump sticker. I’m like, you know, clearly that was already well underway.

And now I think we effectively can count that a lot of those traditional union members have already left the Democratic Party. And that’s where we are. And it’s been a serious realignment of parts of our base.

And I think that’s driving some of the more extreme things of our party now, too.

Watch the full interview above.

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