Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailGet our free Inside Washington emailPennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, known for his frequent breaks with the party’s voting base on a wide range of issues, is now dismissing the idea that Donald Trump is acting like an “autocrat”. Fetterman appeared on an interview with CNN’s Manu Raju on the Sunday edition of Inside Politics. The senator swiped at protesters who confronted the president this past week at a swanky Washington D.C. restaurant as Trump ate dinner with top administration officials and supporters.“You don’t ever compare anyone to Hitler,” Fetterman told CNN. “This is not an autocrat. This is a product of a democratic election.”He went on to say that members of his party were wrong to accuse Trump and the Republican Party of seeking to tear up the U.S. Constitution, even as the president and his administration are undertaking what a wide range of experts, including the libertarian Cato Institute, argue is an unprecedented attempt to roll back free speech and expression rights for both Americans and noncitizens.“We can’t just be, ‘Trump is always wrong!’” Fetterman argued. “A lot of Americans happen to disagree with you. That does not mean that they are fascists, or that they want to shred the Constitution.”John Fetterman frequently breaks with his party and has emerged as one of the most conservative-friendly Democrats in the Senate (CNN State of the Union)His remarks come after the administration jailed a college student for writing an op-ed and sought to revoke visas for foreign students who expressed views and opinions that ran counter to those of the White House and the State Department, even policing their personal social media accounts.The president has also ordered a federalized takeover of Washington, D.C., which involved deploying National Guard troops around the city and a surge of federal law enforcement activity aimed at stopping street crime. The president battled with Washington, D.C., city leaders in the courts over taking over the city’s police force, while Trump himself has openly threatened to replace the mayor.The majority of arrests by federal law enforcement teams in the capital have been immigration-related, part of a national campaign of mass deportation and immigration enforcement raids the White House has launched around the country.In the Oval Office, Trump has openly threatened his political enemies and has constructed a small team of loyalists to pursue the possibility of criminal investigations against key Democratic figures. His administration has sought to pressure top academic institutions like Harvard to toe a conservative line or lose federal funding, while instituting a loyalty purge across government. The media has been another target; the president filed a $10bn lawsuit against The Wall Street Journal and through a settlement with CBS News’s previous owner engineered the installation of Bari Weiss in a commanding role at one of America’s oldest remaining national news outfits.Fetterman, meanwhile, has largely alienated the base of voters who elected him in 2022. A poll of Pittsburgh voters obtained by Politico in May showed the senator more unpopular than not with Democratic voters in the city of Pittsburgh, his home turf.The senator now faces frequent sniping from his former Democratic opponent for the seat, Conor Lamb, as the latter remains an active participant in Democratic events around the state and often calls out Fetterman along with his Republican counterparts for not speaking directly to voters.Interviews with Democrats in the state conducted by The Independent earlier this year suggested that Fetterman’s turn isn’t well-received, either by everyday voters or state- and local-level Democratic officials around Pennsylvania.The senator’s call for his party to tone down the rhetoric comes as Republicans have sought to cast blame on that very rhetoric for the shooting death of Charlie Kirk, at Utah Valley University this past week. Kirk, a close ally of Trump and members of his inner circle, was killed while at a public speaking engagement. A suspect turned himself in after a statewide manhunt was launched by Utah officials and the FBI.At the same time, many on the right have veered towards overt calls for blood and vengeance in the wake of the shooting, such as Fox News host Jesse Watters.“They are at war with us. Whether we want to accept it or not,” Watters said of Democrats and the left on his show after the shooting. “They are at war with us. And what are we going to do about it?”
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‘Not an autocrat’: Fetterman warns Democrats must be nicer to Trump
