John Fetterman, Bob Casey had wildly different reactions to Joe Biden dropping out

Sen. John Fetterman and Sen. Bob Casey, both Pennsylvania Democrats, took starkly different tones when reacting to President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the ballot.

Fetterman has fiercely defended Biden’s position on the 2024 ticket and compared the president’s debate performance to his own bad debate during his 2022 campaign. He didn’t budge from that position on Sunday.

“People pushed out an honorable man, loving father and a great president before an absolute sleazeball like Menendez,” Fetterman said on Sunday in reference to Sen. Bob Menendez, the embattled New Jersey senator who was convicted in a corruption trial last week, according to Semafor reporter David Weigel. “Congratulations,” Fetterman added.

Fetterman did not make any public statements himself on Sunday and did not respond to requests for comment.

Sen. Bob Casey, on the other hand, embraced Vice President Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee.

“With women’s rights, workers’ rights, and voting rights on the line, the stakes of this election for Pennsylvania and the Nation couldn’t be higher,” Casey wrote in a post on X.

He said Harris has ledfights on those issues, and she will “draw a clear contrast” with former President Donald Trump due to her experience as a former prosecutor.

“She is prepared to be Commander-in-Chief and is the best person to meet this moment,” Casey added. “I’m proud to endorse her candidacy for President.”

When pressed about whether Biden should drop out of the race at a campaign event in Philadelphia on Friday, Casey said he has always supported Biden. But he also said that he has heard concerns “over and over again” about Biden’s ability to beat Trump and serve another four years, and that they should be taken into consideration.

“I’ve supported him like no one else, and I am going to continue to support him,” Casey said to reporters on Friday. “But people have concerns, and those concerns are legitimate, and I think they’re important concerns.”

Casey also said Friday that he believed Biden was “weighing those concerns.”

“I think in the end, he’ll make the best decision for the American people like he always does,” Casey added on Friday.