Pennsylvania Democratic Sen. John Fetterman has argued that his party’s 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris “lost the plot” when she called President Donald Trump a “fascist” during last year’s race.
Speaking to Sean Hannity on Fox News on Wednesday, Fetterman accused his fellow Democrats of doubling down on a losing strategy by continuing to compare Trump to Adolf Hitler – as Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker did last week – by asking: “What is going on? Why have they chosen that path when it did not succeed the first time?”
“I don’t know why, and I have always refused to say that,” he said. “When Vice President Harris referred to President Trump as a ‘fascist’, I knew absolutely we lost the plot at that point.
“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.
“I happen to know and love a lot of people that voted for the president and they are not fascist, they are not Nazis, they’re not trying to destroy the Constitution and all those things. They just happen to have different priorities and they love our country in the same ways that Democrats do as well.”
The senator made a similar point to Manu Raju on CNN’s Inside Politics last month when he said of Trump: “You don’t ever compare anyone to Hitler. This is not an autocrat. This is a product of a democratic election.”
In his Hannity interview, Fetterman went on to argue that such inflammatory rhetoric leads to incidents like the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
Harris indeed answered at a CNN town hall event last year, when asked by moderator Anderson Cooper whether she considered Trump a “fascist”: “Yes, I do. Yes, I do.” Later at the same event, the Democrat said her rival “admires dictators” and “is a fascist.”
Harris also cited comments made to The New York Times by the president’s own former chief of staff, retired U.S. Marine Corps general John F Kelly, who alleged that Trump had repeatedly complained that U.S. military leaders were not as loyal to him as Nazi generals had been to Hitler.
That said, Trump also called Harris a “fascist” during the campaign – on so many occasions, in fact, that CNN was able to compile them into a montage.
Democrats have reportedly grown increasingly concerned about Fetterman’s lean to the right, which has led him to seek common ground with the president’s MAGA movement by joining Truth Social, approving several of Trump’s more controversial cabinet nominees, and attending his inauguration.
Axios reported last week that top Democrats are planning to primary Fetterman in 2028 to ensure they have someone more aligned with their priorities in Pennsylvania, a crucial swing state every election year.
Reps. Brendan Boyle, Chris Deluzio, and former Rep. Conor Lamb were all named as possible challengers, with Fetterman responding angrily to the story by accusing its authors of pursuing “clickbait.”
The senator, who has reportedly had health issues, has yet to announce his re-election bid definitively, and he allegedly does not care for life in Washington, D.C.
He has also struggled to drum up campaign fundraising of late, reporting a haul of just under $330,000 in the third quarter of the year. This marks the third consecutive quarter in which he has spent more than he has raised, according to The Pennsylvania Capital-Star.
The total was the lowest amount Fetterman has brought in since February 2021, when he first announced his candidacy for office. This journey concluded with him beating TV medic Dr Mehmet Oz, who went on to become Trump’s administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
A Quinnipiac University poll released on October 1 showed Fetterman with an 8-point net job approval rating, an improvement from its January survey in which the senator was found to have a 3-point rating.
However, his overall approval rating is higher among Republicans (41 points) than it is with Democrats (21 points). In January, he held a 70-point net approval rating with his own party and a 59-point rating with the opposition.
