Conor Lamb says John Fetterman ‘should be listening to people,’ criticizing the senator’s upcoming appearance with Dave McCormick

It has been more than two months since U.S. Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) held a public event in Pennsylvania, stopping by the Pennsylvania Farm Show in January. Next on his schedule: appearing at an event in Pittsburgh Saturday to promote Republican U.S. Sen. Dave McCormick’s new book about mentorship — Fetterman’s latest display of bipartisanship that is rankling Democrats in his party.

“There’s a lot of people around Pennsylvania who are wondering, is anyone sticking up for us in all this?” said former U.S. Rep. Conor Lamb, a Democrat who lost to Fetterman in the 2022 Democratic Senate primary.

“And that’s John Fetterman’s job. He should be not only speaking out, he should be listening to people, and instead, it sounds like he’s going to be listening to Dave McCormick and cheering on Dave McCormick’s book signing.”

Lamb, a former prosecutor in the Marines who is now working at Kline & Specter, said he has no immediate plans to run for office. He first criticized his former Senate opponent on social media last weekend after Fetterman blasted fellow Democrat U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York for suggesting Democrats should have voted against a GOP-backed resolution to fund the government earlier this month, averting a government shutdown. Ocasio-Cortez piled on, sharing Lamb’s post and saying she had backed the wrong guy — Fetterman — in the 2022 primary. The moment captured how Democrats from Ocasio-Cortez on the left to Lamb, a relative moderate, have united in frustration against Fetterman and his recent Republican-friendly posture.

“He’s been saying the same thing about Democrats now for six months, we get it,” Lamb said. “Democrats know we have some issues, but he has a job to do. … I know that trashing the Democratic Party gets him a lot of attention, but he wasn’t put in office to be a political commentator. He was sent to office to get results.”

Fetterman’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

The book event, the first joint public appearance featuring Pennsylvania’s two senators, is advertised as a conversation between McCormick, Fetterman, and their wives, Dina Powell and Gisele Fetterman, focused on improving mentorship programs for young people.

Tickets to the event are $32 and include a copy of the book, Who Believed in You?, written by Powell and McCormick. The book is meant to “kick-start a national mentoring movement,” promotional materials say, and features interviews with Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Pennsylvania is one of just a handful of states with a split Senate delegation, and Fetterman and McCormick have proudly touted their friendly working relationship — previously sitting for an interview together and dining out with their wives.

But absent other public events from the politicians, and amid national pressure for Republicans to host town halls, the book chat is drawing several progressive groups in Pennsylvania to protest.

“There would be nobody protesting this book thing if the senators were doing their jobs and providing opportunities for constituents to participate in another forum,” said Dana Kellerman, a veterinarian and a member of Indivisible Pittsburgh. “We just want to be heard.”

Elaine Giarrusso, a retired dentist and coleader of Partners for Progress SWPA, a chapter of Indivisible, is also organizing the protest. Her group has joined “Mondays without McCormick” events, calling on the Republican lawmaker to directly engage with his constituents. “Just the idea of having a public ticketed event, it’s almost a slap in the face that you’ll meet with people who will pay money to you but you haven’t held even a tele-town hall,” she said.

McCormick, who took office in January, posts on social media about meetings with constituents and holds weekly coffees with invited Pennsylvanians in Washington. A spokesperson for McCormick said he has been in Pennsylvania “nearly every weekend since being sworn in,” meets with Pennsylvanians in his office daily, and “plans to have regular tele-townhalls.”

The book conversation with Fetterman was originally slated to be at Pittsburgh’s City Winery, but advertisements for the event no longer feature a venue, simply listing downtown Pittsburgh as the location.

Giaruso also criticized Fetterman for his voting record after he missed 18 of 91 votes so far this year.

Fetterman is one of the most well-known senators Pennsylvania has ever had — but in recent months, he has spent little time with constituents in the state. During the Senate’s last recess, Fetterman, an ardent defender of Israel, traveled there for a second visit and met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Outside of campaigning for former Vice President Kamala Harris in last year’s presidential race, Fetterman has made no public appearances in Philadelphia in at least a year.

That absence contrasts with area Democrats who have tried in recent weeks to use town halls to platform the outrage constituents are feeling amid President Donald Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk’s cuts to federal funding and employees. Sen. Andy Kim (D., N.J.) begged a standing-room-only town hall in Egg Harbor Township recently to “stay engaged.”

As the Democratic Party’s popularity has plummeted and it looks for a way forward, Fetterman’s approach represents a conundrum. He presents a unique, and in recent years popular, perspective on how to reach rural and working-class voters, who are leaving the party at a rapid clip.

But, increasingly, the first-term senator’s willingness to work with Trump and support Trump’s policies, alongside his dismissal of his fellow Democrats, has exasperated many would-be allies.

Cumberland County Democratic chair Matt Roan called for Fetterman to resign in a recent Penn Live op-ed that also blasted the senator for his lack of public town halls.

“Enough is enough. Fetterman no longer represents the interests of those who elected him,” Roan said. “He seems disinterested in serving in this important position.”

Fetterman has criticized Democratic panic surrounding Trump, given the reality of the political situation with the GOP in control. He bashed his party for its attempts to protest Trump’s address to Congress earlier this month, and called votes against a GOP-sponsored budget resolution “a stunt that would have harmed millions and plunged us into chaos.”

“We kept our government open. Deal with it,” Fetterman wrote in an X post responding to Ocasio-Cortez.

Internal Democratic polling, obtained by The Inquirer, shows Fetterman is viewed favorably by 55% of Pittsburgh primary voters and unfavorably by 41%.

A separate statewide poll of Pennsylvania voters conducted by the Bravo Group showed that only 7% of Pennsylvania voters “strongly” approve of him.

But polling also consistently shows most Pennsylvania voters consider themselves ideologically in the center and favor bipartisanship.

Lamb, who is headlining a town hall hosted by the Centre County Democrats on Saturday, said he had avoided speaking out for months in hopes Fetterman’s friendliness with the GOP might produce results.

“It’d be one thing if he was using this bipartisanship to get Trump to get his boot off the neck of Social Security recipients or veterans, but I don’t see John doing that,” Lamb said.

“This is happening in the context of Donald Trump harming Pennsylvanians every day, and we don’t seem to hear much from John Fetterman about that.”