Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 Six days after I-95<\/a> collapsed in Northeast Philadelphia<\/a>, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman<\/a> grabbed a lectern emblazoned with the presidential seal and began what would be his last public remarks in Philadelphia for the next three years.<\/p>\n With President Joe Biden<\/a> on his right and Gov. Josh Shapiro<\/a> on his left, Fetterman spent two minutes praising the president while largely ignoring the governor leading the response. It was a pleasure to be there, he said publicly while among his peers. Privately, he never wanted to be there at all.<\/p>\n \u201cHe didn\u2019t want to go,\u201d recalled a former Fetterman staffer who was involved in getting him to appear at the site of one of the largest calamities in Philadelphia in recent years. \u201cThe fight leading up to that was, \u2018I don\u2019t want to be in the same room with Josh.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Shapiro and Fetterman have long had a cold relationship, something the senator would later devote an entire chapter to, called \u201cThe Shapiro Affair,\u201d in his 2025 memoir.<\/p>\n But his initial refusal to attend an event with the governor just a few months into his term in 2023 was indicative of what many in his orbit would later recognize as a larger trend \u2014 one of Fetterman actively trying to avoid the routine elements of his job as a senator.<\/p>\n An analysis of Fetterman\u2019s record and public appearances by The Inquirer shows he has accomplished little legislatively while also doing less \u2014 in bills introduced, public appearances made, and committee hearings attended \u2014 as time has gone on. He has attended just 16% of his own committee meetings in the last two years and had only 31 public appearances or publicized meetings in his home state in nearly four years, The Inquirer found. He has also voted increasingly with Republicans<\/a> ahead of a 2026 election that could make him a key swing vote if Democrats<\/a> regain a narrow Senate majority.<\/p>\n Fetterman, whose office did not respond to requests for comment for this article, has dismissed past accusations that he is an absentee senator as \u201csmears.\u201d But as he floats the possibility of running for another six-year term after the midterm elections next month \u2014 as he did at an out-of-state event in late September<\/a> \u2014 his record in office is likely to come under greater scrutiny.<\/p>\n Fetterman\u2019s time in office has been marked by a series of controversies and the near-evaporation of support from the Democratic voters <\/a>who helped elect him to two statewide offices in the last decade.<\/p>\n Interviews with more than a half dozen former Fetterman staffers with close knowledge of his day-to-day activities, meanwhile, describe a senator who is almost entirely disengaged from the work.<\/p>\n Repeatedly and consistently, they describe Fetterman \u2014 who is paid a $174,000 salary and received $517,500 in book advances for his memoir, according to financial disclosures \u2014 as a \u201clazy\u201d lawmaker who declines to meet with constituents or colleagues and is dismissive of criticism. He sometimes leaves Washington in the middle of session weeks. And asking him to do \u201cthe bare minimum of being a senator\u201d often involves \u201cbegging\u201d him to take meetings, one former staffer said, sharing a sentiment echoed by several others.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was like arguing with a toddler every day,\u201d the former staffer said, adding that it felt like \u201carguing with him nonstop to pretty much get out of bed in the morning and tie his shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n As he has avoided public appearances, the Western Pennsylvania resident has shown a private disregard for Philadelphia in particular, according to several former staffers.<\/p>\n One former staffer said they were disturbed when Fetterman once described Center City<\/a> as \u201ca f\u2014 war zone\u201d when the staffer said they had recently visited. Another pointed out that while Fetterman publicly praises the city\u2019s mayor, \u201che\u2019s met with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu more than he\u2019s met with Mayor [Cherelle] Parker.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHe never said a nice thing about Philly besides getting a roast pork sandwich,\u201d a third staffer said, referring to Fetterman\u2019s taste for<\/a> Tommy DiNic\u2019s sandwiches at Reading Terminal Market.<\/p>\n \u201cHe never said a nice thing about Philly besides getting a roast pork sandwich.\u201d<\/p>\n A former Fetterman staffer<\/p>\n Publicly, Fetterman has not heaped praise on the city. He has issued statements about federal funding awards and has said he is \u201cconstantly impressed by [Parker\u2019s] willingness to confront the hard issues.\u201d During a Senate Homeland Security Committee meeting in 2025 about security measures for major sporting events, he gave two emphatic thumbs-up when reading from a prepared statement about how the city was set to host the 2026 MLB All-Star Game<\/a>.<\/p>\n Still, he has had just six public appearances in Philadelphia \u2014 four of which were within the initial months of his term in 2023, according to The Inquirer\u2019s review. That includes a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event at Girard College<\/a> and a news conference with Biden<\/a> (in which he flew on Air Force One with the president from Washington to Philly) during his first few weeks in office. He attended a Black mayors\u2019 conference in May 2023 and the I-95 news conference the following month.<\/p>\n He visited Philadelphia Housing Authority leaders and toured the site of a public housing redevelopment project in West Philadelphia<\/a> in August 2025 after helping secure a $21.4 million federal grant, according to PHA. And just outside the city in Upper Darby<\/a>, he joined a 2024 news conference touting $317 million in funding for SEPTA<\/a>, though he has otherwise foregone the typical political move of taking credit for funding with publicized in-person events.<\/p>\n His only other public event in Philadelphia was in June of this year, when he joined Republican U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick<\/a> at a youth basketball camp to promote the new President Donald Trump-branded savings accounts for kids. When McCormick was asked by a reporter after the event about his close relationship and multiple meetings with Parker, a Democrat, Fetterman quickly jumped in.<\/p>\n \u201cI think she\u2019s great,\u201d Fetterman said. \u201cI hoped to have seen her today.\u201d<\/p>\n From a \u2018golden era\u2019 to rare public appearances<\/p>\n Fetterman\u2019s full schedule of events and meetings is not public. But The Inquirer\u2019s review of government calendars and records, media reports, event agendas, and Fetterman\u2019s own social media since 2023 show he has spent his time in office far differently from typical senators \u2014 including McCormick, who has become his closest ally in the chamber.<\/p>\n Over just 11 days during the recent August recess, McCormick\u2019s office said, he traveled 2,000 miles and made 32 stops across Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n It was more than Fetterman\u2019s in-state public appearances in nearly four years.<\/p>\n Fetterman was once known for barnstorming Pennsylvania\u2019s 67 counties and drawing enthusiastic crowds.<\/p>\n And for at least a few months in 2023, he showed signs of keeping up at least a semblance of the pace. The Black mayors\u2019 conference in Philadelphia in May. Pittsburgh\u2019s Pride celebration in June. An August recess in which he and two staffers drove from Pittsburgh to Scranton, stopping at Pennsylvania State University\u2019s Ag Progress Days and ending at another mayors\u2019 conference.<\/p>\n He showed up on picket lines at least seven times that fall, including a few in Michigan and Ohio during the United Auto Workers strike. He rallied voters in Iowa in what a former staffer said Fetterman thought would be a \u201cfunny\u201d way to create speculation that he would run for president someday.<\/p>\n \u201cThis was the golden era,\u201d a former staffer said, echoing others who described Fetterman as more motivated to show up as he had said he would during his campaign a year earlier. \u201cHe was beloved for a minute there.\u201d<\/p>\n Former staffers say the dividing line was the aftermath of the Oct. 7, 2023, attack in Israel. The resulting war by Israel against Hamas in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of civilians and has faced increasing public opposition from Democrats, who once had been part of Fetterman\u2019s base and now oppose Israel\u2019s tactics.<\/p>\n Fetterman has repeatedly said he is \u201calways going to stand with Israel.\u201d In an August appearance on Jon Stewart\u2019s podcast<\/a> in which the host challenged him on the topic, he said the killing of civilians was \u201cterrible\u201d and \u201ccollateral\u201d damage but \u201cnot a genocide,\u201d as some have suggested. In that interview and previously, he has also acknowledged that he has lost previous supporters who disagree with him.<\/p>\n \u201cI know this has cost me support from a significant part of my base, and I\u2019m well aware that it may cost me my seat,\u201d Fetterman wrote in his memoir, Unfettered. \u201cI\u2019m completely at peace with that.\u201d<\/p>\n While Fetterman also wrote in the book that his \u201csupport for Israel is not new,\u201d one former staffer said that the senator had not frequently talked about U.S. support for Israel before Oct. 7 and that it was a \u201cpolitical calculation\u201d on his part to become a voice for the country as loudly and ubiquitously as he had for other causes in his past. That unyielding position amid growing public opposition led to Fetterman being concerned about protests at his events.<\/p>\n \u201cInto the winter and into the spring, it totally shifted,\u201d a former staffer said. \u201cIt was impossible to get him to do much of anything.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe thought he ought to be doing everything he can legislatively to reinstate our contract, and that didn\u2019t seem to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n Phil Glover<\/p>\n His 24 public events in and outside Pennsylvania in 2023 dropped to seven in 2024, 10 in 2025, and eight in the first nine months of 2026, according to The Inquirer\u2019s tally. After Oct. 7, he has dedicated most of his time in the public eye to speaking engagements held outside the state he represents. He has also traveled to Israel twice and met with Netanyahu at least four times abroad and in Washington.<\/p>\n Phil Glover, national vice president for the American Federation of Government Employees district that covers Pennsylvania, said he has not seen Fetterman at any labor-related events in years despite union support being an essential part of his political rise.<\/p>\n