Brian Fitzpatrick talks Trump’s ‘lack of moral clarity,’ November’s midterms and his hatred for the two-party system in Philly Mag

U.S. Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick still won’t say whether he voted for President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

The moderate Republican, who represents purple Bucks County and a sliver of Democratic-leaning Montgomery County, did not vote for the president in 2016. But refusal to share how he voted last year, as reported by Philadelphia Magazine Friday, underscores the difficulty to pin down Fitzpatrick’s exact thoughts on Trump.

There are times when Fitzpatrick is blunt in his opposition, telling Philly Mag that Trump’s placation to Russian President Vladimir Putin is because of a “lack of moral clarity.”

But in other instances, he couches his words against the Trump administration. Fitzpatrick, a former FBI agent, told the magazine that the state of the FBI under Director Kash Patel is “heartbreaking,” but that “we’ve seen the weaponization of the Justice Department now, I believe, in two administrations.”

He also called it “unbecoming” for Trump to accuse six Democratic members of Congress — including U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, of Chester County — of committing sedition after they appeared in a video urging service members to refuse illegal orders.

Trump claimed in a social media post that the lawmakers, all military veterans or former members of the intelligence community, had engaged in behavior that was “punishable by DEATH!”

Fitzpatrick’s comments came in Philadelphia Magazine profile that details how the Bucks County Republican — who rarely gives interviews to local media — is grappling with an American political system that he wishes was drastically less partisan.

“I could talk for hours about this, but the two-party system needs to go away. We need to move to a coalition government and not the way it is now, which is a zero-sum, all-or-nothing game,” Fitzpatrick said describing a form of government where competing political parties govern and work together.

“In the House, if you get 218 votes on a bill, you get everything. And if you get 217 votes, you get nothing,” he said. “Well, a 218–217 breakdown is representative of a very divided electorate that wants compromise, but they don’t get it. And that’s why we have this great, cavernous divide."

The interview comes as the lawmaker’s district has been named a key target for Democrats in the midterms, along with the seats of Republican U.S. Reps. Scott Perry of York County, Ryan Mackenzie of Lehigh County and Rob Bresnahan of Lackawanna County.

“I’m going to keep doing this as long as I can,” Fitzpatrick told the magazine.

Fitzpatrick has strayed from voting with his party (and Trump) on several key issues. But other times, he tows the party line and Democrats have said that Fitzpatrick votes with his party when it counts.

Fitzpatrick said that party leadership discourages reaching across the aisle, but makes his attempts to do so on certain issues.

Recently, Fitzpatrick, Bresnahan, and Mackenzie joined Democrats to sign a discharge petition on extending Affordable Care Act subsidies. He also voted against the final version of Trump’s domestic policy package, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

The latter vote earned Trump’s ire. Without using his name, the president said that Fitzpatrick was disloyal after Trump did him “a big personal favor. As big as you can get having to do with death and life.” This was in reference to Fitzpatrick’s family receiving permission from Trump’s acting secretary of Veterans Affairs to bury Fitzpatrick’s late brother, Mike Fitzpatrick, who held the seat before him, in a national veterans’ cemetery in Washington Crossing, Pa. that he proudly established.

The late representative, a former Navy ROTC enlistee, did not meet the required years of service.

Fitzpatrick told Philly Mag that he thought Trump’s invocation of his brother crossed a line.

“I was really upset to hear that,” he said.