Listener supported, WNYC Studios.

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour, a co-production of WNYC Studios and The New Yorker.

Welcome to The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick.

John Fetterman has cut a unique figure in American politics since he came to national attention.

He's from a well-to-do Republican family, and he emerged as a progressive Democrat, a fighter on issues affecting the working class.

He seemed a sort of Rust Belt Bernie Sanders, rocking a hoodie and cargo shorts.

And he won the Senate race in 2022 against Dr. Mehmet Oz, who was endorsed by Donald Trump,

and that was despite Federman suffering a stroke during the campaign.

More recently, though, Federman has come to stand out in some very different ways.

After the election, he went to Mara Lago and met with Donald Trump.

He joined Truth Social.

He voted to confirm Pam Bondi as Attorney General,

the only Democrat to do so,

and that was after Bondi gave every indication that she would use

the Justice Department to pursue Trump's political opponents. Fetterman also gave us support to

Trump's notion that the United States could one day take over Gaza and develop it as a real

estate project. Over time at the radio hour, we want to provide a deep, as well as a rounded view of what's

happening now in Washington. And Senator Federman in both his ideas and his presentation is an

outlier among the Senate Democrats. So what is he doing? And why? I spoke with John

Ferdeman last week.

You went down to Mar-a-Lago to talk to Trump. So tell me about your conversation with him in Mar-a-Lago and just as much, what was the reaction among your colleagues?

Well, there really wasn't any reaction. People here in the

...