John Fetterman’s Move to the Right on Israel

The New Yorker Radio Hour

WNYC Studios and The New Yorker

News, David, Books, Arts, Storytelling, Wnyc, New, Remnick, News Commentary, Yorker, Politics

4.2 • 5.5K Ratings

🗓️ 28 June 2024

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Once a beacon for progressives, the senator has put the left at a distance and moved past centrist Democrats with his unconditional support of Israel’s conduct during the war in Gaza.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This is the New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC studios and the New Yorker.
0:10.0	Welcome to the New Yorker Radio Hour.
0:12.0	I'm David Remnick.
0:15.0	Nothing about John Federman's journey to the Senate was at all routine.
0:19.0	He was a small town, Pennsylvania mayor,
0:22.0	with a shaved head and a goatee, and the zip code small town
0:23.4	and a goatee and the zip code for the town of Braddock
0:26.8	tattooed on his arm.
0:28.2	He has a pension for cursing sometimes loudly
0:31.8	and he won the Senate race against Mehmet Oz
0:34.8	Dr Oz a celebrity favorite of Donald Trump and through it all he kept making waves dressing in shorts and a hoodie on the Senate floor, an act which prompted a motion to require senators to dress more professionally.
0:50.0	Many Democrats saw Pederman as a potential progressive beacon, a Rust Belt Bernie Sanders,
0:56.1	someone who could rally working-class voters to the Democratic Party.
1:00.5	I ran as a proud progressive. I was the only candidate in the entire country
1:05.2	to endorse Bernie standards for president. I was the only candidate to be for
1:10.1	the full legalization of marijuana.
1:12.6	I led with immigration.
1:15.2	My wife, Giselle, who's in the audience,
1:17.4	a former dreamer.
1:19.4	But at least on one issue,
1:21.0	Federman is veering away from many of his colleagues in the party
1:24.2	and that is Israel's war in Gaza. When a measure was introduced in the Senate
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from WNYC Studios and The New Yorker, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.