John Fetterman Says He's 'Very Libertarian in a Lot of Ways'

Over a decade ago, Sen. John Fetterman (D–Pa.) looked like the future of Bernie Sanders–style populism, championing higher minimum wages, criminal justice reform, and social welfare spending. After 13 years as mayor of deeply impoverished Braddock, Pennsylvania, and then a term as the state's lieutenant governor, he won his Senate seat in 2022.

Since coming to Washington, Fetterman has charted a unique path. He routinely criticizes his own party for "catering to the fringe and agitated parts of our base," accuses fellow Democrats of Trump Derangement Syndrome, and praises capitalism as the one system that has consistently improved living standards.

In May, Fetterman joined The Reason Interview With Nick Gillespie to argue that the socialist politics of such Democrats as Seattle Mayor Katie Wilson and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani are alienating moderates and spell long-term doom for the party. He denounced former President Joe Biden's failure to control the southern border and President Donald Trump's antipathy toward legal immigration, called the national debt a "ticking bomb," and advocated legalizing marijuana and psychedelics.

Reason: You recently wrote in The Washington Post that you're not going to be changing parties. Yet you also have critical words for your own party. You told Fox News that the Democratic Party is turning into "an orgy of socialism." And in your Post piece, you said that Democrats are "catering to the fringe and agitated parts of our base." What do you think is driving that?

Fetterman: Extremism is driving it, without a doubt. Look at the primaries all across in the Senate and in the House, and look at the kinds of people that have already been elected.

For example, the mayor in Seattle, she's an absolute socialist, if not more. And now people [say], "Hey, I'm leaving," and she's like, "Bye." And then, of course, New York, that's its own situation too. I thought [Florida Republican Gov. Ron] DeSantis had a great line saying, "Mamdani is my favorite real estate agent now." It's driving people away. People can move, and they can vote with their feet. That explains why Florida continues to flourish. But a lot of these states like New York and other blue states, we've read that $2 trillion have migrated out of these states too.

The Democratic Party is the problem, except they love the billionaires that fund those kinds of causes and those kinds of organizations that are actually driving a part, a lot, of the protesting. That's where that energy is as well. Look at some of the views now that people are espousing. It's moving more and more in socialism and communism.

In Maine, for example, [Democratic Senate candidate] Graham Platner: avowed communist. He described himself as a communist. "Antifa"—that's not a slur from me. That's his own words, how he described that.

What about your own personal evolution? In 2016, you endorsed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I–Vt.) in the presidential primaries for the Democratic Party. He's an avowed democratic socialist. What is it that rubbed you the wrong way about socialists or communists since then?

In 2016, it was much more about the minimum wage and some other very basic kinds of things. Now that's just turned into much more standing with Cuba, standing with Venezuela, standing with the Iranian regime, and turn that into becoming more increasingly anti-American.

My views really haven't changed that much, things that I supported. I was very supportive about gay rights. Back in 2013, I was officializing a gay marriage when that was illegal. I was happy to get arrested on that. My views really haven't changed; what's really changed is the party. In 2024, I was campaigning for Kamala Harris 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. The excess of the party back then summoned the second term of the Trump administration.

.@SenFettermanPA endorsed Bernie Sanders for president in 2016. Now he's blasting fellow Democrats for embracing socialism.

What changed?

"My views really haven't changed. What's really changed is the party," Fetterman tells @nickgillespie on The Reason Interview podcast. pic.twitter.com/M2OjvyidQE

— reason (@reason) May 16, 2026

You've said that the Democratic Party has become anti-men. What forms does that take? What's driving the lurch to the far left, both in terms of economic policy and identity politics?

If you make someone feel uncomfortable or unwelcome, they will leave. They've done that. Back in 2016, I witnessed that. I lived directly across the street from a steel mill and the union hall. I was doing an event for Secretary [of State Hillary] Clinton at that time. I was asking the union president, "Where's your people on that?" And he's like, "At least half, half if not more, are [for] Trump." And just coincidentally, a guy in a big truck drove by and he honked, "Ha ha ha, go Trump, go Trump." He had truck nuts on the trailer and had a Trump sticker. Clearly that's what's already well underway. I think we effectively can count that a lot of those traditional union members have already left the Democratic Party. That's where we are. It's been a serious realignment of parts of our base. And that's driving some of the more extreme things of our party now too.

You have said Trump is plainspoken. That's a charitable way of saying it. When he announced he was running for president, he launched into a diatribe against Mexicans being rapists and drug dealers.

He uses and engages in things that I would never engage on that. Just a couple of hours before this conversation, he put an image of Democrats in sewage in the reflecting pool here in Washington, D.C. I don't do those kinds of things. I don't support those things. But I also think it's ridiculous to heckle him over $13 million to rehab that. That's just kind of small ball, for me.

But let's talk about immigration. We absolutely, the Democratic Party, became an open-border party. That used to be a GOP slur. But then you realize those numbers. It really was—you had 300,000 people showing up at our border every month. That's the size of Pittsburgh, [near] where I live. I try to describe that to my party. This is a serious problem. People are angry. All of our blue cities have become overwhelmed. New York, Chicago, Denver, Boston: All those were overwhelmed with migrants. I was a Democrat being very, very pro-immigration, as I remain that. But we have to secure our border and deport all the criminals.

This draws a distinction not just between Trump and the Democrats but between you and many Democrats. Biden, in his last year, basically secured the southern border. Trump has cut legal immigration. He is exceptionally anti-immigrant. What is a better policy, once we presume that the border is secure?

Not a single Democrat could identify what's the solution. What do you do with 300,000 people showing up at the border every month? People were living at the airport in Boston. New York City spent $8 [billion], $9 billion to house and take care of those people and secure the border. The Biden administration finally made some changes. They should have already had them in place. Why not secure the border? Because I think they were afraid of the party, and that would be anti-immigration or racist for those other kinds of things. We think what's appropriate: secure the border, deport all the criminals. I was the Democratic lead for the Laken Riley bill. I grieve for Renée Good or Alex Pretti, but I also grieve for Laken Riley or Miles Young and other people that were victimized by people that should have never been here or already should have been deported after they broke the law.

It's easy to say that someone here illegally who commits a violent crime should be deported or imprisoned. But communities like western Pennsylvania need new people moving in. What would a good, viable legal immigration system look like, one that will help American communities, businesses, and the economy thrive?

We have the most generous and the largest immigration program of any country in the world already. People and immigrants are coming to Pennsylvania. In parts of Pennsylvania, like in Reading and the Lehigh Valley, across our state, the immigrant community is actually driving a lot of those economies. Agriculture is our top industry in Pennsylvania. Targeting and going after these workers is absolutely wrong. I've spoken out against that. Don't harass and target otherwise lawful people that are just working hard. I agree with that. We should protect our Dreamers too. My wife was a Dreamer. You reference what's easy. No, that's common sense; it's not easy. We betrayed those basic kinds of standards as a party. And now the Republicans, Trump has betrayed those same commonsense standards, and you have the kind of calamity in Minneapolis.

I became the only Democrat that voted for Markwayne Mullin for the next secretary [of the Department of Homeland Security]. [Kristi] Noem was a disaster. I called for her to go. I'm working with Markwayne. Markwayne promised, "I'm not going to be the guy in the headlines." There aren't any headlines.

What do you say to Republicans, including senators like Eric Schmitt from Missouri, who talk about how the real Americans are the people who can trace their heritage here back to sometime before the Civil War? Is that any way to build a viable nation?

We all have our own different views for that. For me, my family is a product of immigration, illegal immigration. My views on that haven't changed ever. That's why we have to find a way forward. Twenty-seven years ago, I had Alan Simpson as a professor at [Harvard Kennedy School]. He said you are never going to have any meaningful immigration legalization, because both sides use it and they weaponize it. That was absolutely true. So finding a way forward, it's too valuable for the extremists to blame the immigrants or to say that we could just open up our border. It's necessary to find a commonsense approach and reject the extreme things.

Do you support a path to citizenship for people who enter the country illegally but have been living here and have not been arrested for any kind of serious crime?

Yeah. I think that was part of a deal years ago, and that was derailed too. Right now, the base in our respective parties punish people that want to have a serious conversation about that. That's where we constantly are now. I absolutely knew we were going to get rolled for the bipartisan border deal back in '23 and '24, because there's no way you're going to provide that—it was too valuable on both sides. That's what happened about immigration. And here we are. That's where we are right now. Thankfully, they are coming back and they're taking more reasonable advice.

In your recent Washington Post piece you said you remain strongly pro-choice and pro-weed. Are you going to introduce legislation, or is there any federal movement to legalize marijuana or change drug laws so states can experiment more freely?

I am very, very libertarian in a lot of ways and for those circumstances. If you check my record, I've been for legal weed for forever. Politically, that was toxic or certainly not popular. And also psychedelics too. Back then too, when I was [lieutenant governor]. Pennsylvania, that's the mushroom king in the world. That is the fact. I said, "My goodness, why? Couldn't this be a really a great opportunity for agriculture and helping people feeling better about that?" Thankfully, I think we could all agree [with] everything that President Trump has done about liberalizing marijuana and psychedelics. As a libertarian, I don't judge or knock anyone for whatever they [use to] knock their edge off to just make it through in this world.

I absolutely support Zyn and those things as long as it's safe. I think that's important. That's a choice that every American of legal age deserves to have and to participate in a way that doesn't turn them into a criminal, or for those things make it as safe as possible. I think that's sacred too. Whatever that is, a glass of wine or scotch or a little weed, sitting in front of the firepit in your backyard, whatever that is. Your path for wellness, psychedelics, whatever, I think it all should be legal without judgment and without punishment or a criminal record. I've been very consistent about that and sharing those things. I do hope it continues to liberalize overall.

Tell me what you dislike about Trump. What is it about Trump that most gets you mad? What are the Republicans doing most wrong, as far as you're concerned?

He invited me to have dinner and sat down with him in January of 2025. He just came back from the most remarkable political comeback in American history, as far as I'm aware of. He was sitting, his power was peak, and he could have done a lot of big, big important things. He got a second chance in every kind of way. My God, he was shot in the head. Half an inch over, that could have turned that into a Zapruder tape. Thank God.

I don't know why he chose some of these choices when he could have done so much more. Technically, he did make [it] about revenge and those things. The strongest of these small petty kinds of cases, the strongest one I can cite is the guy that threw the sandwich at the [Customs and Border Protection agent]. I don't know why you engage in that. There's no upside for those things. Those cases never go anywhere. But I absolutely support, I was proud. I stand with Israel, and that's why I follow him now too.

Last year, federal spending was the equivalent of 23 percent of gross domestic product, while tax revenue, overall revenue was 17 percent. We had a $1.78 trillion deficit last year. The national debt is bigger than the annual economy. You are a proponent of spending lots of money or having the government be very robust and muscular and helping people. Is the national debt or federal annual deficits a problem? How do we close that gap?

Without a doubt, the national debt is a ticking bomb. Without a doubt, we are going to have to address that. We are going to have to deal with entitlements. We have to do all these kinds of honest conversations. That's going to require bipartisanship. That's going to demand that we remember we're all Americans. We have to find solutions here. Unfortunately, here in this town right now, we are doing just dumb, pointless things. Shutting down our government. I was the only Democrat that said that's dumb and terrible. Why would you shut down our entire government because we aren't able to win enough elections to make the kind of changes that we all want to?

Do you support ending the Senate filibuster? Trump wants to get rid of it, and I believe you have spoken positively about getting rid of the filibuster.

We Democrats, we were so wrong about eliminating the filibuster. I was wrong too. I'll be the first person to say we were so wrong. Thank God people prevailed. I think history vindicated someone like [former Sens. Kyrsten] Sinema [I–Ariz.] and [Joe] Manchin [I–W.Va.] to stand for that. If the Senate becomes a smaller version of the House, that would have profound changes that are going to damage our nation.

So we need the filibuster? The filibuster should stay in place?

Absolutely, 100 percent. Same Democrats—we seem to forget we all wanted to get rid of it. But now we love that shit. We love the filibuster. Thank God, the filibuster. I'm not surprised that the president is going to come for the filibuster, because that's the one thing that stands in the way before they lose the majority. Without a doubt, the House is going to change. The Senate's possible, perhaps—I don't know. But the backlash, the chaos, and without a doubt, there is going to be a lot of churn.

Social Security and Medicare are the main drivers of the national debt and annual budget deficits. Should these programs be cut back to function more as a safety net, or should taxes be raised to fund them? What is your preferred solution to entitlement reform?

When I was at grad school, they had a comprehensive, two-week node to study Social Security. It was solvent through 2037. Way, way back in 1998, that felt like we'd be living on the moon and other things. Now that's starting to approach. It just required very small, small actuarial kinds of changes for that. Insolvent does not mean broke; it just means at that point you could pay 75 percent of current benefit levels. Just agreeing as a Democrat, Republican, I'm not going to weaponize this conversation against one another, and we're not going to scare the elderly Americans. Congress has to be the adult in the room. We refuse to do that. People are running right now—"Fuck Trump, fuck Trump," that is their campaign. They are producing these kinds of videos to do that thing. It's both sides. Congress, we have to be the adult in the room and solve these serious problems. I'm here to be in that conversation as a Democrat that's been isolated in my party for some of these views, and the same guy that doesn't engage in some of the extreme AI slop in social media things from the other side too. That's where I'm at: having conversations with the left, the right, and here with you too. I'm all thrilled to just have a real conversation about where we are.

Braddock, Pennsylvania, is a town of about 1,500 or 1,700 people. You were its mayor. You told me in 2011 that you were administering palliative care, that the town probably wasn't coming back. Can you bring us up to date? What is Braddock like now? What policies would actually help people there live with dignity and give their children and grandchildren thriving lives?

When you and I met all those years ago [on Real Time With Bill Maher], I still lived there. I have three children, and they live there. They were all born in Braddock. And we [were] working—both the Biden administration and the Trump administration—to save the American steel way of life here. We were able to save a lot of the buildings in town too. We created some more affordable housing.

It's not a renaissance. When I arrived, 90 percent of all that stuff was gone already. During my time as mayor, I was very proud to address gun violence, and we were successful in achieving those things too. Giving a shit about these kinds of abandoned places, that really became my argument. It was never about money, power. No one ever showed up in a place like Braddock trying to help kids get GEDs. I never thought I would be ending up here in the United States Senate, for now, but that's where I am.

That's still my home. I could have moved. I could've moved at any point, but I live there and things are better than they were when I arrived. Significantly. But it's never going to be a gentrification. It's abandonment, and that remains a significant problem.

I think you would consider yourself a "big government liberal." Do you think government should be heavily involved in people's lives and provide money and opportunities?

No. I would never describe myself in that way. There are important problems that a government is necessary to address. Government is not the solution for all things. I'm a capitalist. I absolutely revere the market and how it's able to correct and redirect these kinds of resources. I think things continue to get better and better despite the churn and a lot of the chaos.

Is there a tension between protectionism and the creative destruction that is always happening? The industries that you were born into are not going to exist forever. How do you minimize the disruption without blocking the changes necessary to renew towns, regions, and whole countries?

That's a complicated answer. But for me, I'm a very pro-capitalist Democrat. I refuse to engage in the extreme rhetoric and support the kinds of extremism and throw around those stupid terms like end-stage capitalism. Without a doubt in human history, capitalism has been the only system that has proven to raise the quality of life across the globe. That's a fact. And now, thankfully, we were able to prevail here in our nation.

This interview has been condensed and edited for style and clarity.