Sen. Fetterman says he’ll leave the Democratic Party if it ‘officially’ becomes ‘anti-Israel’

CongressSen. Fetterman says he’ll leave the Democratic Party if it ‘officially’ becomes ‘anti-Israel’The Pennsylvania Democrat laid out a red line that would cause him to quit his party, although he didn’t say whether he would become an independent or a Republican.Listen to this article with a free profile00:0000:00Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., has increasingly broken with his party.Manuel Balce Ceneta / AP fileShareAdd NBC News to GoogleJuly 16, 2026, 2:03 PM EDTBy Brennan Leach and Sahil KapurWASHINGTON — Sen. John Fetterman said he would leave the Democratic Party if it “officially” becomes “the anti-Israel party.”Subscribe to read this story ad-freeGet unlimited access to ad-free articles and exclusive content.For the first time this week, the Pennsylvania Democrat laid out a specific condition that would cause him to quit his party as his relationship with fellow Democrats has soured deeply.“If they put that in our platform — no aid for Israel, and officially become the anti-Israel party, then yeah, that’s a red line for me,” Fetterman told NBC News on Thursday. “Democrats, we’ve always should support Israel. That’s our special ally, you know? In the only democracy in the entire region, that’s Israel. So I’m always proud to stand with Israel.”He added that it would be a problem for him “if the Democratic Party officially says ‘Israel is the problem, Israel doesn’t deserve to exist, and I’m never going to support aid, and I’m not going to call out Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran as terrorists, and they are the problem in the region.’”Notably, Fetterman did not say whether he would switch his affiliation to the Republican Party — or if he’d become an independent and continue to caucus with Democrats, as Sens. Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema did prior to retiring in 2024.American public sympathies have been shifting away from Israelis and more toward Palestinians during the war in Gaza, particularly among Democrats. On Wednesday, 103 House Democrats voted for an amendme...