Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) on Wednesday accused the Democratic base of becoming “increasingly anti-American” amid calls against U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, Iran and Cuba.

Reason magazine’s Nick Gillespie, asked Fetterman on the “Reason Interview” podcast about what the senator thinks of his politics now, having backed Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a democratic socialist, in 2016.

“Well, I mean, you know, in 2016, it was much more about the minimum wage and some other very basic kinds of thing,” Fetterman said. “And now that’s, that’s just turned into much more standing with like Cuba, standing with Venezuela, standing with the Iranian regime and, and turn that into much more becoming more increasingly anti-American for me. So, my views really haven’t changed that much.”

Fetterman said he has not seen a change in his political views, citing his support for marriage equality as an example.

“What’s really changed is the party,” he continued. “And in 2024, I was campaigning for Kamala Harris there 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 … the excess of the party back then summoned the second term of the Trump administration.”

Fetterman also noted the shift from union members and their leaders stepping away from supporting Democrats, a tradition since the New Deal era, toward backing President Trump.

“And now I think we effectively can count that a lot of those traditional union members have already left the Democratic Party,” the Pennsylvania Democrat said. “And that’s where we are. And it’s been a serious realignment of parts of our base.”

Fetterman has insisted he has not “changed” since he took over former Sen. Pat Toomey’s (R-Pa.) seat in 2022. He argued in a recent op-ed for The Washington Post that elected Democrats “cannot simply be the opposite of whatever President Donald Trump says.”

“I’d be a terrible Republican who still votes overwhelmingly with Democrats,” he wrote in the op-ed about the notion of switching parties.

He has also been vocal about feeling “lonely” within his own party, particularly given his support for Israel and border security. The centrist Democrat called out colleagues who oppose the rapid development of AI and data centers, calling their opposition “lunacy.”

Fetterman has also pushed back on claims from several Democrats and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) that Israel has committed a genocide that has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza. He labeled Greene as “crazy pants” and pushed back on the claim of genocide in 2025.

“It’s not a genocide, you know, that’s just not the case,” he told reporters at the time about Greene’s remarks. “And she’s entitled to her opinion, but I’m entitled to not really care what her views on that is.”

Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.