Senator John Fetterman was reportedly spotted at a MAGA hangout in Washington, D.C. with ultra-conservative strategist Steve Bannon.
The Pennsylvania lawmaker was seen on Monday dining at the D.C. establishment Butterworth’s–which has become MAGA’s favorite restaurant—with Matthew Boyle, Washington bureau chief of the right-wing Breitbart News Network, according to Politico.
Fetterman was later joined by Bannon, President Donald Trump’s former chief strategist, “for a good 20 minutes or so,” Politico reported.
A spokesperson for Fetterman told the Daily Beast that the senator’s run-in with Bannon was unplanned.
The Democratic senator stirred speculations about a party switch earlier this year after he met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago and repeatedly broke from his colleagues to side with Republicans on issues including a Trump-backed spending bill and the Laken Riley Act.
Fetterman stepped further away from his party this week when he ripped Democrats over their response to the protests against immigration raids in Los Angeles, which became the site of heated clashes between law enforcement and demonstrators.
Scenes from the protest that broke out late last week included officers firing rubber bullets and tear gas into crowds as protesters threw rocks and set self-driving cars on fire.
“I unapologetically stand for free speech, peaceful demonstrations, and immigration—but this is not that,” Fetterman said in a now-deleted post on X. “This is anarchy and true chaos. My party loses the moral high ground when we refuse to condemn setting cars on fire, destroying buildings, and assaulting law enforcement.”
On Tuesday, Fetterman appeared to back down, telling NewsNation that his post wasn’t intended as a critique of the Democratic Party.
“When people are setting cars on fire and damaging buildings and going at members of law enforcement, that’s not free speech, that’s not protesting. That’s just illegal behavior. And you know, we can’t ever be quiet, or we can’t defend that,” he said.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez hit back at Fetterman.
“I think that if Sen. Fetterman or anybody else is concerned with law and order, we should be looking at one of the most law-breaking agencies and administrations that we’ve seen in the United States,” she told reporters. “We also have a convicted felon in the White House.”
