Fetterman appeared concerned about the DNC’s new vice chairman, 24-year-old activist David Hogg. The DNC held leadership elections on Feb. 1, electing Hogg along with Artie Blanco and Malcolm Kenyatta as vice chairs. Minnesota DFL chairman Ken Martin was elected chairchairman.

“The new leadership of the DNC, the vice chair, [said] you know, abolish ICE and the other thing saying, defund the police,” Fetterman said in a podcast with Puck journalist Tara Palmeri. “I’m concerned that we really haven’t paid attention on what happened. And have we looked up at the scoreboard and been like, oh, by the way, we’ve lost.”

FULL LIST OF EXECUTIVE ORDERS, ACTIONS, AND PROCLAMATIONS TRUMP HAS MADE AS PRESIDENT

Fetterman is referencing social media posts Hogg made in 2020. Hogg posted “Abolish ICE” in a July 31 post, and “Defund the police not USPS” on Aug. 15 of the same year.

The senator added that he “didn’t know much about” Martin, the new chairman.

Democrats lost a chance at regaining the House, and lost control of both the Senate and the White House during the 2024 elections.

The party reflected in the aftermath of the election, partly blaming former Vice President Kamala Harris’s late entry into the race, and their inconsistent stances on transgender, Israel, and immigration issues.

The Pennsylvania senator also agreed that his party is “toxic” and had a hard time connecting with voters in swing states like his home state.

“I think their primary currency was shaming and scolding and talking down to people and telling them, ‘Hey, I know better than you, or you’re dopes, or you’re a bro, or you’re ignorant or, how can you be this dumb? I can’t imagine it. And then, by the way, they’re fascists. How can you vote for that?’” Fetterman said.

He continued, “And you know, when you’re in a state like Pennsylvania, I know, and I love people that voted for Trump, and they’re not fascist. They don’t support insurrection and those things. And if you go to an extreme, and you become a boutique kind of proposition, then you’re going to lose the argument. And we have done that.” 

Fetterman later went further to say that he wasn’t sure Democrats could win back white men, and that support from the demographic has been “seriously eroding” for a while.

“In the conversations I’ve had a lot of people, they don’t even want to say it publicly, but they just feel like, you know, the other side seems like it’s, it’s like men, well, that men’s the problem,” he said. “Men are to blame, or their masculinity is toxic. Or if you, unless you’re able to conform to our very strict kinds of definition of what we think’s appropriate, well then I’m going to find an alternative. And they’ve done that.”

Fetterman has been one of the most moderate Democratic senators since the start of Trump’s presidency. He’s met with Trump, voted in favor of some of his nominees, and has been more open than other Democrats to meeting with his prospective cabinet choices like DNI nominee Tulsi Gabbard and HHS nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

The senator was heavily rumored to be a candidate to leave the Democratic Party last month, but he shot the rumors down in harsh terms, saying it was “amateur-hour sh*t.”

“If they think, ‘Oh, it’s going to be like a Manchin or a Sinema play,’ that’s just not true, and that’s not going to happen … And even if I wanted to do that, that is a rocket sled to Palookaville to try to switch. I would make a pretty bad Republican.”