Fetterman Calls Out His Own Party's Messaging Strategy, Praises Spencer Pratt's LA Mayoral Ads

Fetterman Does It Again

Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) went on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher on May 11, 2026, and said what Democratic strategists don't want to hear.

Democrat campaign ads, Fetterman said, are "literally 'f*ck Trump.'" His words, not ours.

He argued that kind of messaging won't "win a national argument" — especially in competitive states where voters have actual problems to worry about.

The Spencer Pratt Angle

Fetterman held up Spencer Pratt — yes, that Spencer Pratt, from The Hills — as an example of smarter political messaging in the Los Angeles mayoral race.

Pratt's campaign has deployed AI-generated ads that hit on affordability, homelessness, and public safety. One video, created by filmmaker Charles Curran, depicts Pratt as Batman saving LA from villains — including one made to resemble incumbent Mayor Karen Bass as the Joker, and California Governor Gavin Newsom depicted as Louis XIV eating cake.

Fetterman's take: it's creative, it's targeted at real issues, and it works.

"He has this AI commercial as Batman," Fetterman told Maher, describing the ad. The Democratic Party's version of that? Endless Trump attack loops that don't address a single local issue.

The Broader California Picture

This isn't just about a quirky mayoral race.

According to prediction market Kalshi as of mid-May 2026, Republican gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton has a 79% chance of advancing to the California primary runoff in early June. A Republican with a near-80% shot at the runoff in California.

Hilton's campaign, like Pratt's, focuses on safety and affordability. Not Trump. Not January 6th. Not abortion rights framing. Actual kitchen-table issues.

Meanwhile, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter's latest ad features protesters holding signs reading "Dump Trump" — despite Trump not being on the California ballot or up for re-election in any capacity.

Democratic mayoral candidate Nithya Raman ran an ad about Hollywood's film industry decline that prominently featured her husband, a TV producer who has worked on 30 Rock and Modern Family. The ad was meant to generate sympathy. It generated mockery.

What the Right-Leaning Press Is Getting Wrong

Fox News and Daily Wire are covering this story primarily as a "Fetterman dunks on Democrats" narrative. That's not wrong, but it's incomplete.

This story was almost exclusively covered by right-leaning outlets — which means the framing has a predictable tilt.

A left-leaning outlet would likely emphasize: Fetterman is an outlier, NOT a representative voice of the Democratic Party. Progressive commentators would point out that his approval among Pennsylvania Democrats has dropped significantly as he's drifted rightward on immigration and Israel. His endorsement of Pratt — a celebrity with ZERO governing experience — could fairly be criticized as shallow political theater swapping one kind of spectacle for another.

Left-leaning analysts would also note that anti-Trump messaging has worked in specific contexts — the 2018 and 2022 midterms saw Democratic gains partly on contrast with Trump. The argument isn't as one-sided as Fetterman makes it.

And progressives would correctly point out that Spencer Pratt winning a mayoral race on Batman AI ads isn't exactly a policy mandate — it's a different flavor of content-over-substance politics.

What's Actually True Here

Both sides have a point, and both sides are missing something.

Fetterman is right that "Trump bad" is not a governing platform. Voters in California are dealing with real crises — a homelessness epidemic, surging housing costs, a crime environment that drove businesses out of downtown LA. Ads that don't address those things are politically useless.

But the progressive critique is also valid: Pratt is a celebrity candidate running on vibes and AI-generated content. Backing him as a model for Democratic renewal is, at minimum, a strange choice.

The real story underneath all of this is simpler: California Democrats have failed their constituents on basic quality-of-life issues for years, and voters are looking elsewhere. That's not a messaging problem. That's a results problem. No amount of Batman ads or Trump montages fixes that.

What This Means for Regular People

If you live in Los Angeles, you're watching a mayoral race where a reality TV star is being treated as a legitimate political force — because the actual politicians have failed so visibly that almost anyone looks credible by comparison.

If you're a Democrat anywhere in the country, Fetterman is telling you something your consultants won't: the strategy isn't working.

If you're a Republican, don't get too comfortable. Winning because the other side collapsed is NOT the same as having a vision people believe in.

The voters figure that out eventually.