Fetterman denies rightward shift toward Trump amid concerns over his Democratic dedication
27 January
U.S. Senator John Fetterman’s complex relationship with President Donald Trump has raised many eyebrows on the left, with some Democrats worrying he could switch sides, giving Senate Republicans a greater advantage in their current narrow majority.
Fetterman, the senior senator from Pennsylvania, was the first Senate Democrat to join Trump’s Truth Social website and the first Democratic Senator to visit Trump at Mar-a-Lago after the 2024 election.
“President Trump invited me to meet, and I accepted. I’m the Senator for all Pennsylvanians— not just Democrats in Pennsylvania,” Fetterman declared, Reuters reported.
He was also the first Democratic Senator to call for President Joe Biden to pardon Trump.
“The Trump hush money and Hunter Biden cases were both bullshit, and pardons are appropriate,” Fetterman wrote in his first Truth Social post, the UK’s The Times reported last month. “Weaponising the judiciary for blatant, partisan gain diminishes the collective faith in our institutions and sows further division.”
On Monday, he became the last Senate Democrat to sign on to a resolution condemning Trump’s pardons of over 1500 people convicted of crimes related to the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol and the insurrection.
According to the Associated Press, “Fetterman has warmed to Trump so much that some in his party are quietly disavowing the man they supported in 2022, when the Pennsylvanian easily won a three-candidate primary and survived a stroke amid a high-pressure campaign to become the only Democrat to flip a Republican Senate seat that year.”
And he’s embraced Trump’s proposed Greenland grab, calling it “a responsible conversation.”
On Monday, Fetterman rejected the party switching rumors, declaring those who suggest he has made a “rightward” move are wrong: “it’s just happened not to be true.”
“I’ve been record too, saying, I am not gonna become a Republican, you know, although maybe some people might be happy on one side, but I would make a pretty terrible Republican because, you know, pro-choice, pro-really strong immigration pro-LGBTQ, uh, you know, just pretty, like, I don’t think I’d be a good fit, so I’m not gonna change my party.”
“I can’t keep chasing down every last thing that’s online, because they’re just happen not to be true and just look at my votes, look at the things that I haven’t changed,” Fetterman insisted.
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