‘EPSTEIN WAS A NOTHING BURGER’

MAGA’s Favorite Dem’s Trumpy Texts Exposed in Bombshell Leak

The senator has been a thorn in his party’s side for months.

Leaked texts by John Fetterman reveal why many of the Pennsylvania senator’s staffers are reportedly worried: he is increasingly behaving like a Republican.

Messages obtained by New York Magazine show the Democrat mocking free healthcare, dismissing the Epstein files as a “nothing burger,” and calling Democrats hypocritical for their outrage at the killing of nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. Fetterman has been a thorn in his party’s side on a host of issues.

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In January, according to the report, Fetterman sent staffers an article about how annual healthcare costs for a typical working American family are nearly $4,000.

“How should it cost? Free?” he wrote. “I don’t understand what affordability it is.”

Also in January, as the Trump administration was dragging its heels about releasing the Epstein files, Fetterman messaged a staffer: “Epstein was a nothing burger. Worst pics I’ve seen were from Clinton lol.”

Then, after federal agents repeatedly shot Pretti in the back during anti-ICE protests, Fetterman complained that Democrats shouldn’t be taking his side because they had objected when Kyle Rittenhouse “brought a gun to a protest,” as Fetterman characterized it.

“Kyle Rittenhouse brought a gun to a protest,” Fetterman, 56, texted a staffer. “He was roundly condemned for that. Why are now democrats defending the nurse it was legal to carry. Both legal weapons. Square that.”

Unlike Pretti, though, Rittenhouse actually fired his gun. He shot three men—two fatally—during civil unrest in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in August 2020 after the shooting of Jacob Blake by a police officer. Rittenhouse was charged with two counts of homicide and one count of attempted homicide, among other charges. He was found not guilty.

Pretti’s killing, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office determined, was a homicide.

Fetterman’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.

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The senator’s Republican-friendly interviews and voting behavior—on Tuesday, he was the only Senate Democrat to oppose a War Powers Resolution over the Iran conflict—have coincided with health concerns stemming from a 2022 stroke.

Last May, some current and former staffers voiced concerns to New York Magazine that Fetterman was at times erratic and manic.

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Fetterman dismissed those claims, saying they came from disgruntled staffers. He has maintained he is healthy and can carry out his Senate work.

On Wednesday, Fetterman lost his third chief of staff since taking office in early 2023.

Since being sworn in, Fetterman’s net popularity among his Democratic constituents has also taken a nose-dive. While he was up 68 points in 2023, in March, he was down 40 points—a 108-point swing, a Quinniapac poll showed.

“There’s no historical analog to his unpopularity,” as CNN data analyst Harry Enten put it at the time. Enten then listed five senators since 2000 who each lost their primary, and among them, the worst net rating within their party was only -15.

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