Fetterman has been helping Republicans for years now. Democrats are livid.
Now Senator John Fetterman just came to the defense of a prominent conservative you’ll never guess.
A Senator Who Says What Decent People Are Thinking
John Fetterman has made a habit of saying plainly what most of his colleagues are either too cowardly or too politically calcified to admit. He did it again Wednesday, defending Erika Kirk — widow of slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk — after online critics piled onto a video of her leaving the White House Correspondents’ Dinner in tears following the assassination attempt on President Trump.
“It blows,” Fetterman said of the attacks targeting Kirk. “People attack a widow. I mean what’s wrong with people? That’s bonkers.”
Charlie Kirk was assassinated in September during one of his college outreach events on the campus of Utah Valley University. Erika Kirk, not even a year removed from that loss, was present at the Correspondents’ Dinner when a gunman allegedly opened fire. The sight of her fleeing in tears, pleading “I just want to go home,” went viral. Within hours, portions of social media — particularly among those ideologically opposed to everything her late husband represented — had produced content mocking or dismissing her distress.
Fetterman was one of the first prominent Democrats to call it out.
“How triggering that must have been for her,” he told Fox News Digital, describing a brief personal exchange with Kirk in the chaos that followed the shooting. “I expressed how sorry I am,” he said. “She was frantic, understandably, after her husband was assassinated.”
That a sitting Democratic senator felt compelled to make these observations — and that doing so is considered noteworthy — says something about the state of American political life that is not flattering to either party.
On Iran: Fetterman Breaks With His Party Again
The Erika Kirk comments were the most personal part of Fetterman’s Wednesday remarks, but not the most politically significant. On Iran, Fetterman once again staked out a position that puts him well to the right of his caucus — and well to the left of where most conservatives would be comfortable.
Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote against a Senate war powers resolution on Wednesday that would have placed limits on American involvement in the Iran conflict — making it the seventh time he has broken with his party on the issue. He has previously called out fellow Democrats for lending Iran’s hardliners political cover by publicly opposing Trump’s strategy, and he has consistently argued that demanding Iran surrender its nuclear material is a non-negotiable American interest.
“I think it’s important to stand and demand Iran to surrender its nuclear material,” Fetterman told Fox News Digital. “I mean, my views haven’t changed.”
He also had pointed words for China, which has continued to facilitate Iranian oil sales while publicly claiming neutrality. “I think China should feel that pain. I think that’s entirely appropriate. Why can’t China demand that? Why not? Unless they want to create Iran as a nuclear power, and that would be incredibly dangerous for the whole world peace.”
Defense Spending — And A Democrat Who Gets It
Fetterman’s heterodox positions now extend to defense spending. He told Fox News Digital he is “very open” to President Trump’s $1.5 trillion defense budget proposal for fiscal year 2027 — the largest such request in American history.
“The idea that we are the arsenal of the free world,” he said. “It’s really important to make sure that we have whatever’s necessary to defend democracy in the global stage.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent recently credited Fetterman publicly for “putting country before political ideology” in connection with his vote on the Fed chair confirmation, a rare moment of cross-party recognition in Washington’s current environment. It is not lost on observers that the Democrat receiving the most open praise from the Trump administration is also the one being openly ostracized by Senate Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and pressured to fall back in line by Gov. Josh Shapiro. The Pennsylvania senator appears to have made his peace with that arrangement.
