BySAM JANESCH/THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER/TNS

AUGUST 6, 2026 11:35

Updated: AUGUST 6, 2026 12:44

US Sen. John Fetterman offered a strong defense of his consistent support for Israel during a detailed and challenging interview with Jon Stewart on a podcast episode released Wednesday.

The liberal comedian and commentator repeatedly charged that Fetterman (D., Pa.) was oversimplifying the progressive wing of the party and the discussion over Israel's conduct in the Gaza conflict.

"Jewish community and Israel are not the same thing, brother man. They are not - that is not the same thing," Stewart, who is Jewish, said at one point while Fetterman linked his strong backing of the war effort to "the Jewish community."

Pressed multiple times on America's ethical duty to support Israeli operations that have resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians, Fetterman held his ground.

Fetterman and Jon Stewart examine Israel-Hamas conflict and Netanyahu during podcast discussion

He repeated his long-standing view, first voiced after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack that ignited the fighting, that targeting Hamas leadership remains essential. Civilian casualties are "terrible" and amount to "collateral" damage but do not constitute genocide, Fetterman stated.

Stewart kept pressing, asking why Fetterman offered no criticism of a foreign partner that was "dehumanizing" and gradually eliminating another population.

"I do not understand how you have no criticisms over their actions, over their increasingly messianic, ultra-right-wing government that seems to think relentless war is, like, that you can bomb people out of resistance," Stewart said.

Fetterman's strong defense of Israel leads to tense exchange

The roughly 75-minute interview on "The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart" took place a week after Fetterman again met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington.

Numerous other elected Democrats have stepped back from the Israeli government and faulted its methods. Fetterman has noted that his stance has cost him politically. During the talk with Stewart, he repeated earlier remarks - also reflected in recent polls - that he has lost backing from his former Democratic supporters as his positions and those of the party have moved apart.

"I am aware that if I happen to disagree with the party line, there is a price to pay," Fetterman said. "There are a lot of stories of how I have become increasingly more unpopular with Democrats in my state. And I am aware of it. But these were all very specific choices. ... I would rather have people know what I happen to believe."

Stewart questioned Fetterman several times about the way he has expressed those differences.

He said the senator has spent far more time arguing with members of his own party in a manner that has further damaged its image. He has also broken from party ranks while Democrats seek to use any leverage that could affect the Republican agenda as the GOP holds both Congress and the White House, Stewart said.

He pointed to matters such as immigration enforcement changes, which Democrats sought to advance by withholding support for a spending bill earlier this year. Fetterman said he backed the changes but would not agree to allow part of the government to shut down as a tactic.

Stewart also pressed Fetterman on why his tone toward President Donald Trump has softened while his criticism of his own party has grown sharper.

"You called President Donald Trump a jagoff in 2016," Stewart said, prompting Fetterman to note that he placed the phrase on shirts and sold them.

"You put it on a shirt. And now you have been very complimentary to him. And if your concern with Graham Platner is you did not think he was very nice to women, you are ignoring an awful lot of evidence for the current president about his relationship with women," Stewart said, referencing Fetterman's criticism of the Maine Democrat who exited the race after facing sexual assault claims.

"So my point is, there seems like there is a way to go about this that embraces, as you said, the 90 percent of things that you agree with, and try and utilize that energy to reform a party that has a worse public image than herpes in terms of getting things done. This feels like it is playing into the hands of Republican caricatures."

Fetterman pushed back, saying he was working to curb "extreme" elements of his party in order to improve outcomes in battleground races such as Pennsylvania following Democratic setbacks in 2024.

"We keep losing, and now we keep returning back to some of the extreme things," Fetterman said. "That is not a caricature. That is a fair assessment of where we are with these kind of things."

Stewart, noting that former vice president Kamala Harris was not the most progressive Democratic choice in 2024, rejected the notion that the party lost because of far-left positions. In a longer exchange on capitalism and socialism, he also urged Fetterman to consider fresh ideas from democratic socialist candidates whom Fetterman, like many Republicans, labels as communists.

Fetterman, who often appears on Fox News but has not appeared on more liberal programs like Stewart's "Daily Show," described himself as a longtime fan of Stewart and said he believed the interview was "very fair."

At the end of the podcast, after Fetterman left, Stewart said he "was not sure what to think" and was "weirdly thrown off right now."

"I feel like we all just got out of one of those movies. Do you know those movies where it is like ... there was a weirdly traumatizing scene in the movie," Stewart said. "And now we are all just, like, 'Do you guys, um, do you want to go get something? I guess I am just going to go get a slice and maybe go home.'"