Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., made headlines this week by chastising his party’s 2024 presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, over her campaign rhetoric.
“When Vice President Harris referred to President Trump as a ‘fascist,’ and I knew, absolutely, we lost the plot at that point,” Fetterman told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday.
The senator, who comes from a swing state that Trump won in the 2024 presidential election, noted that portraying the president in that way was essentially mischaracterizing the tens of millions of Americans who supported him.
“If you call the president or someone like a ‘fascist,’ you are effectively calling the people who are going to vote for him [the same thing] and then they must be fascist, too … or they support fascism and those things. And that is just not true,” the Pennsylvania senator added.
The senator’s comments come days after the nationwide left-wing “No Kings” protests, which featured at least one attendee publicly celebrating the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. During a Piers Morgan interview published this week, left-wing political commentator Harry Sisson dared his conservative co-panelists to cite an instance in which Harris called the president “Hitler.”
“When did Kamala Harris call Donald Trump, Hitler?” Sisson asked, to which conservative commentator Isabel Brown replied: “October of 2024, Kamala Harris said on the campaign trail, ‘Donald Trump vowed to be a dictator on Day One. His former chief of staff said he wanted generals like Hitler’s. Donald Trump openly admired dictators, including Adolf Hitler.’ Last October, that was said on the campaign trail, from the Democrat nominee.”
Conservative political activist Jack Posobiec added, “So, Kamala Harris said this during the campaign, during the closing days of the campaign. It was her final campaign pitch.”
When asked during a CNN town hall in October 2024 whether she considered Trump to be a fascist, Harris replied, “Yes, I do. Yes, I do.”
Fetterman’s comments critiquing Harris are just the latest remarks the senator has made where he has broken with his party over its tactics. The Pennsylvania lawmaker has also opposed his party on the federal government shutdown, which is now the second-longest in U.S. history.
In early October, Fetterman told The Daily Signal, “We shouldn’t be having this conversation. You shouldn’t be shutting our government down.”
“When the Republicans were doing it, we rightly criticized them, attacked them for doing that … . Don’t shut it down. It’s fundamentally wrong,” the Pennsylvania senator added.
Fetterman voted Thursday to pay active-duty military members and essential federal workers. The senator explained on the social media platform X on Wednesday.
“Shut our government down and America loses. 2 MILLION Pennsylvanians depend on SNAP to feed their families. For me, it’s hungry Americans over party. Paying our military over party. Paying Capitol Police and federal workers over party. I choose country over party,” he wrote.
