BUCKS COUNTY, Pennsylvania — Arizona Democratic Sen. Ruben Gallego said Republicans are trying to pull John Fetterman to the right and argued Democrats should keep the Pennsylvania senator in their corner as he faces mounting questions over his health and shifting political persona.

“There needs to be space for Fetterman and for other senators in our caucus,” he said in an interview Saturday. “He still is a senator that fights for working-class people. We may not be 100 percent in agreement a lot of times in a lot of areas, but we don’t have to be.”

While some Democrats have distanced themselves from Fetterman, top Republicans have rallied around him in the wake of news reports that his current and former staffers are concerned about his mental and physical health. Several GOP senators, including Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), have come to Fetterman’s defense on social media.

“The radical left is smearing him with dishonest, vicious attacks because he’s pro-Israel and they only want reliable anti-Israel politicians,” Cotton said.

Asked if Republicans are trying to tug Fetterman to the GOP, Gallego said “of course.”

“In the Marines, we call these fuck-fuck games,” said Gallego, who traveled to Pennsylvania Saturday for a town hall.

Fetterman has said repeatedly that he will not change parties. But that isn’t stopping some conservatives from trying to push him to vote for their priorities — and perhaps more broadly come onto their side. The Club for Growth, a conservative group, is airing a TV ad in Pennsylvania this weekend praising Fetterman as “standing up for every working family in PA” and urging him to back President Donald Trump’s tax cuts.

Fetterman has voted against the budget blueprint laying the groundwork for a massive package that would include the extension of Trump’s first-term tax cuts, and he said on Friday he remains opposed to the efforts. Gallego expressed confidence that Fetterman would continue to hold that position, saying “I think the last thing he’ll do is harming working-class families by voting for the reconciliation bill.”

While Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has said Fetterman is an “all-star” who is “doing a good job,” several House Democrats in Fetterman’s state have offered more chilly responses, saying that the recent reporting raises questions and voters should read it. Fetterman has also drawn criticism from some on the left over his hardline position on Israel and recent meeting with Trump.

During Gallego’s town hall, Gallego repeatedly stressed the need for Democrats to maintain a big tent. He was asked by a member of the audience why he did a fundraiser with Marc Andreessen, a pro-Trump businessperson. Gallego said he runs “the largest venture capital firm in Arizona.”

“We got so pure that we started kicking people out of the tent — it ends up there aren’t enough people in the tent to win elections,” he said to applause.

Gallego’s stop in the critical battleground of Pennsylvania, first reported by POLITICO, has drawn speculation that he is interested in a future presidential bid. When asked in an NBC News interview about the prospect of running for the White House, Gallego said, “Has it ever crossed my mind? Fucking of course, I’m an elected official, it crosses my mind. Am I thinking about it right now? Absolutely not.”

Democratic National Convention Chair Ken Martin on Saturday doubled down on his ultimatum for rogue Vice Chair David Hogg: Take a neutrality pledge or step down.

“Party officers have one job: to be fair stewards of a process that invites every Democrat to the table — regardless of personal views or allegiances,” Martin said.

After weeks of infighting about how the hobbled party should move forward, Martin laid out his longstanding vision on Saturday in a post on X and called out Hogg, who caused an uproar last month after he told POLITICO that he would fund Democratic primaries for “ineffective, asleep-at-the-wheel” Democrats.

Following Hogg’s comments, Martin made it clear that as a party officer, you must remain neutral in Democratic primaries — and suggested Hogg should step down from his role if he can’t get on board.

The statement comes hours after it was reported by POLITICO that Hogg privately pitched a compromise to his party in recent days. He proposed a so-called internal firewall in which he would stay on as vice chair but be barred from accessing internal committee information about races as long as he was supporting challengers.

“Some critics have wrongly framed this as an effort to shut people out of the party or to discourage contested primaries,” Martin wrote. “Let me be unequivocally clear: That’s not only false, it’s the opposite of what I stand for.”

Martin, as many party officers in the past have argued, said that the pledge allows for a fairer process without interference from party leadership.

In the lengthy thread, Martin mentioned Hogg by name, saying he respects the 25-year-old activist-turned DNC vice chair.

“When I ran for DNC Chair, I ran on a platform of democratizing the party,” he wrote. “Those reforms weren’t about any one person, and they certainly aren’t about me versus David Hogg. … Long before David was ever involved in politics, I was pushing reforms within our Democratic Party.”

Martin added that when you lead the institution that calls “balls and strikes, you don’t get to also swing the bat.”

“I am more committed than ever to introduce the slate of structural reforms that enshrine these values into the official rules of the Democratic Party,” Martin said. “These reforms will require all party officers — including myself — to remain neutral in primaries.”