Fetterman dares Menendez to run for reelection, doubles down on call for his expulsion

WASHINGTON — As a reporter asked Sen. John Fetterman about his renewed call to expel Sen. Bob Menendez, Menendez got off the elevator near Senate chambers and walked by.

“Ask him, ‘Why are you still here?’” Fetterman said to reporters — and to Menendez — as he passed.

The exchange came the same day Menendez defended himself in a speech on the Senate floor after additional corruption charges were filed against him last week and as Congress convenes for its first week this year.

Menendez, in a 20-minute speech Tuesday morning in a mostly empty Senate chamber, argued the government is conspiring against him to sway public opinion and a potential jury pool and implored colleagues to reserve judgment. He said the alleged favorable actions he’s accused of making in exchange for bribes amount to the innocuous everyday work of a senator.

“Why did the government not proceed with all of these accusations from the beginning?” Menendez said. “The answer is clear to me. By filing three indictments … it allows the government to keep the sensational story in the press and seeks to convict me in the court of public opinion.”

It was the first time the New Jersey Democrat, who has maintained his innocence, has addressed the charges against him on the Senate floor since he was charged. The initial indictment in September alleged Menendez acted as a foreign agent for Egypt in exchange for bribes.

Last week prosecutors filed additional charges accusing Menendez of providing favorable statements for Qatar to help a New Jersey real estate developer as part of an ongoing bribery scheme.

Menendez was forced to step down from his powerful post leading the Senate Foreign Relations Committee after he was first charged. Prosecutors said the senator and his wife, Nadine Menendez, accepted bribes of cash, gold bars, and a luxury car over the last five years from three New Jersey businessmen in exchange for a variety of corrupt acts.

Menendez has vehemently defended himself and, on Tuesday, argued advocating for businesses to come to the state fell under his duties as a senator. While he acknowledged he’d made positive statements about Qatar and Egypt, he highlighted instances when he’d also publicly criticized those countries.

He told reporters he has not decided whether to seek reelection, noting he didn’t announce until March the last time he ran.

Fetterman has been Menendez’s loudest critic and the lone voice among Senate Democrats advocating for his expulsion. The two men were together for a Democratic luncheon ahead of their hallway collision in which Fetterman compared the situation to the House expulsion of Republican Rep. George Santos, whose ouster followed an indictment for fraud, theft and money laundering charges.

“How can we chuck Santos, but keep a sleazeball like him around?” Fetterman said of Menendez.

And Fetterman dared Menendez to run for reelection. “I dare him to … I think he’s probably polling at about four percent.” Menendez had support from just 6% of New Jersey likely voters in a recent poll, trailing U.S. Rep. Andy Kim (D., N.J.) and New Jersey first lady Tammy Murphy, who have both announced they’ll seek the seat.

Asked whether he’s pressed Democratic leadership to draft a resolution, Fetterman said Democrats needed to show an interest in such a move. “That’s really up to them to just make the votes.”

The Pennsylvania Democrat introduced a resolution in November calling for sanctions against Senate members indicted on certain federal charges. The proposal, which has not advanced, would have a direct impact on Menendez.

In his Tuesday speech, Menendez said the case against him set a “dangerous” precedent.

“It opens a dangerous door for the Justice Department to take the normal engagement of members of Congress with a foreign government and to transform those engagements into a charge of being a foreign agent,” Menendez said.

Fetterman scoffed at the description. “I wish he would come up with an explanation of why you have gold bars in your mattress and gigantic wads of cash hanging around.”

Menendez referenced the cash and gold bars in his address and said he would provide at trial “a full explanation of what is the truth about those issues.”

He declined to tell reporters what that explanation was. “We’ll go through that in trial. I don’t think I should litigate my case in the press unlike what the government is doing.”