White House hosts Dem operative whose group Fetterman camp slammed as grifters

Less than two weeks after Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman’s campaign castigated a progressive super PAC as “grifters,” the head of that group has scored an invite to the White House.

Photos posted on Twitter show Scott Dworkin, executive director of the Democratic Coalition, posing in front of the White House’s north portico with about two dozen progressive social media personalities on Friday, and inside the press briefing room, too.

The visit came a day after Fetterman flew with President Joe Biden on Air Force One during campaign stops in Pennsylvania.

It marks a swift change in fortunes for the group after Fetterman’s campaign manager in a fundraising email labeled the Democratic Coalition a “scam PAC … pretending that the money they raise goes to John and our campaign.”

“Not only is this wrong, it also puts us at a major disadvantage,” Brendan McPhillips wrote, asking supporters to chip in money to make up for the lost dollars.

The object of McPhillips’ ire was an ad the Democratic Coalition had launched earlier in the week holding up Fetterman as a champion of the working class who would act as a bulwark against encroachments on democracy, women’s rights and health care. The ad asked viewers to “donate today and help us show this awesome Fetterman ad to swing voters in Pennsylvania,” which Dworkin defended as a means to “fire up” the state’s Democratic base ahead of the midterms.

McPhillips charged the group with siphoning off money for themselves, rather than the actual Fetterman campaign. And his exasperation was cheered by several progressive operatives who have previously accused the Democratic Coalition of soliciting money from impassioned liberals only to spend it on its own operations. “Fuck around and find out, grifters,” McPhillips wrote.

A White House spokesperson confirmed Dworkin’s presence, noting in a statement: “More than two dozen managers of prominent social media accounts visited the White House today to highlight this President’s record of accomplishment — ranging from empowering Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices to making historic investments in combatting the climate crisis.”

Left unclear is who Dworkin and his fellow progressives — which included Mueller She Wrote’s Allison Gill, the creators behind anti-Trump group MeidasTouch and Occupy Democrats’ Grant Stern — met with while at the White House. The group did appear to cross paths with second gentleman Doug Emhoff. Members of the group posted photos from around the White House grounds, posing with portraits around the West Wing and at the lectern in the briefing room.

Dworkin did not return a request for comment.

Sam Stein contributed to this report.