CHICAGO — Gov. Josh Shapiro is here. So is Lt. Gov. Austin Davis. And U.S. Sen. Bob Casey.
But U.S. Sen. John Fetterman is not.
He apparently has decided to stay home.
Mr. Fetterman did not respond to requests for comment from the Post-Gazette but told The Free Press that he had other things to do.
“I’ve got three young kids, and they’re out of school,” he said. “That’s four days I can spend with my children.”
Aides to Mr. Fetterman reportedly discouraged Vice President Kamala Harris from choosing Mr. Shapiro as her running mate, although the senator told MSNBC that he “never directed anyone on my team or anyone to do that.”
The freshman senator is at odds with the far left of his party, which has opposed Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. He has emerged as one of Israel’s strongest supporters since the attack.
Like the White House, Mr. Fetterman has opposed calls for an immediate cease-fire that is not combined with the release of the Israeli hostages captured in the attack. Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, says Israel has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians in its counterattacks; Israel says more than a third of them were Hamas fighters.
Pro-Palestinian protesters have assembled in Chicago this week to demand a cutoff of U.S. support to Israel.
At the convention, Mr. Shapiro denied that antisemitism had anything to do with the fact that Ms. Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, did not select him as her running mate but instead chose Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz. Mr. Walz’s position on Israel is similar to that of Mr. Shapiro.
In Wilkes-Barre over the weekend, former President Donald Trump said that the only reason Mr. Shapiro wasn’t picked over Mr. Walz was because of antisemitism.
“Any Jewish person that votes for her or a Democrat has to go out and have their head examined,” Mr. Trump said.
Asked about those comments, Mr. Shapiro said: “Antisemitism played no role in the dialogue I had. It is true that there is antisemitism in this country, along with racism and Islamophobia and homophobia. We need to stand up and condemn all of it.”
He added: “I’m not going to take electoral advice from Donald Trump, who has continually lost, a guy whose enablers have lost. I don’t think he is a word of authority on much of anything.”
First Published: August 19, 2024, 5:57 p.m.
Updated: August 20, 2024, 5:39 p.m.
