Fetterman Staff Quit Amid Frustration Over “Just Working on Israel All the Time”

The exodus of staff from the office of Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., continued Thursday with two new departures.

The exits of the longtime staffers reflects a deep disillusionment in Fetterman’s office with his disavowal of progressive politics and turn toward the right in both his openness to working with President Donald Trump and his embrace of strident pro-Israel positions.

The office’s “major staff turnover,” as one team Fetterman veteran put it, comes amid a tough hiring environment for Democratic staffers in Washington.

“This is a guy who came in talking about being a champion for labor and he’s gone pretty quiet on it.”

“I don’t find this as a surprise,” said the former Fetterman campaign staffer, who requested anonymity to protect their livelihood. “I think the staff is probably frustrated that working in the Fetterman office means you’re just working on Israel all the time.”

“This is a guy who came in talking about being a champion for labor and he’s gone pretty quiet on it,” they said. “This is a guy who, since Trump won, is for lack of better word basically a useful idiot for Republicans. He’s supporting stuff and it gives them cover to say, ‘Look it’s bipartisan, we got Fetterman.’”

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The most recent departures are two of six from Fetterman’s office since his hard pro-Israel turn after the October 7 attacks in 2023. Three of Fetterman’s top communications staffers left his office last spring after he claimed he was not a progressive amid criticism from his left-leaning colleagues over his aggressive pro-Israel stances. 

After that round of resignations, Fetterman hired a new communications director, Carrie Adams. Adams then left the office last month. Fetterman posted an opening for a new communications director on Wednesday. 

The newest staffers on the way out are Charlie Hills, Fetterman’s communications director, whose last day is Friday, and legislative director Tré Easton, whose departure date is unclear. Hills and Easton’s resignations were first reported by NBC News. “Together we created a legislative body of work that I think is a blueprint for how Democrats should be governing when they have power,” Easton told NBC in a statement. (Neither Hills nor Fetterman’s office immediately responded to a request for comment.)

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The bleeding of staff, the former campaign staffer said, is a sign that people in Fetterman’s office are fed up with his abandonment of campaign promises to make the economy easier on working-class people; be an advocate for the poor, immigrants, and LGBTQ+ people; and push for criminal justice reform in the Senate. 

Fetterman campaigned as a progressive and positioned himself as the only logical option for Pennsylvania voters to fight Trump’s influence in the 2022 Senate race. But shortly after taking office, Fetterman abandoned the progressive mantle.

Fetterman’s recent postures are a far cry from his 2022 campaign, which included focusing on cutting taxes for working people and celebrating immigrants — including his wife. “We diminish ourselves and are never more un-American when we eliminate citizenship for those who just simply want to contribute and be a part of our great country,” Fetterman said in a 2022 campaign ad.

Since the October 7 attack, Fetterman’s office has ignored most of the issues he campaigned on, instead turning almost all his focus toward the Israel–Palestine conflict, according to people familiar with his office. At the same time, Fetterman has added a number of Republican donors to his roster, The Intercept reported. 

Since Trump took office last month, Fetterman has become a sometime Republican ally. He was one of 12 Democrats in the Senate to support the GOP’s draconian new immigration law. At times, Fetterman has been Trump’s sole ally across the aisle. He was the only Democrat to vote to confirm Pam Bondi, Trump’s nominee for attorney general who helped spread the lie that Trump won the 2020 presidential election.