Fetterman says Trump is ‘not an autocrat’ in CNN interview
“This is a product of a democratic election,” the Pennsylvania Democrat said.
U.S. Sen. John Fetterman once again broke with other Democrats, saying in a CNN interview that some in his party need to tone down the rhetoric about President Donald Trump.
“This is not an autocrat. This is a product of a democratic election,” Fetterman told Manu Raju on Inside Politics Sunday. “We lost, and the American people put us in the minority. That’s democracy.”
Fetterman said divisive language and progressive stances were among the factors that cost Democrats the 2024 presidential election, and allowed Republicans to retain a majority in the House and regain control in the Senate.
“We’ve really lost our connection with American voters,” said Fetterman, a first-term senator from Pennsylvania who is up for reelection in 2028.
With the looming risk of a government shutdown at the end of the month, Fetterman reiterated his distaste for the move, saying it only hurts constituents. And he criticized the administration’s targeting of hard-working immigrants without criminal records.
Unlike other Democrats, he did not condemn Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C., and his mentions of doing so in other cities. When he was the mayor of Braddock, Pa., he said, he would have appreciated such support.
“If Trump is calling for something X, Y, and Z, then that doesn’t mean we have to necessarily oppose that,” Fetterman said.
Fetterman has broken with his party several times during his first few years in the Senate. He has been an outspoken defender of Israel in the war in Gaza, called protests in L.A. over U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids “anarchy,” and voted to confirm eight of Trump’s cabinet picks, more than any other Democratic senator representing Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Delaware. In January, he became the first sitting Democratic senator to visit then-President-elect Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and has developed a friendship with conservative Pennsylvania Sen. Dave McCormick, a Trump ally.
Fetterman was also criticized this spring after former staffers expressed concern over his mental health and his ability to do the job in an extensive New York Magazine article and subsequent reports, including in The Inquirer.
Fetterman, who received inpatient treatment for depression in 2023, has called the New York Magazine article “a hit piece” full of false allegations.