Sen John Fetterman blasts Dems for calling Trump an ‘autocrat,' urges party to reflect on losses

WASHINGTON, DC: Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman ripped into his fellow Democrats for labeling President Donald Trump an 'autocrat' and urged the party to face facts about its recent electoral defeats.

In a wide-ranging sit-down with CNN’s Manu Raju that aired Sunday on Inside Politics, the Pennsylvania Democrat argued that the overheated rhetoric has helped Democrats lose elections instead of winning them. "Clearly, we’ve lost the argument,” Fetterman said. “Be honest about why we lost 2 of last 3 cycles.”

Representing a swing state that flipped red in 2024, Fetterman said Democrats have drifted away from the voters they need most.

“This is not an autocrat. This is a product of a democratic election,” he told Raju of Trump, noting that the President’s victory was legitimate.

Fetterman also pushed back hard against comparisons to history’s worst figures. “You don’t ever compare anyone to Hitler,” he said. “We have to turn the temperature down. It’s like we can’t compare people to these kinds of figures in history.”

Elections, shutdown threats, and why doubling down won’t work

Fetterman argued that Democrats are repeating the very mistakes that cost them in the first place.

“My party is acting in a way they have forgotten one of the reasons why we lost in 2024,” he said. “Some of the most extreme things were weaponized against that, and now people think they have to double down on those things or become more progressive or more extreme. That’s absolutely not true.”

Winning national elections comes down to battleground states and not activist applause lines, he insisted.

“The seven or eight states that are going to determine who’s going to be our next president, you know, we have to win in those states, and I understand what that takes,” Fetterman said. “A lot of these ideas that are now putting back and being reintroduced are not going to carry Pennsylvania.” 

The senator also rejected calls from some Democrats to use government shutdowns as leverage in spending fights.

“That’s not fighting. That’s mutilating our nation,” Fetterman said. “If you vote to shut our government down, you are going to harm millions of Americans, and why would you do this? Where is our leverage?”

Shutdowns were wrong when Republicans pushed them and would be just as wrong now, he added.

Breaking from his party on crime, immigration, and foreign policy

On public safety, Fetterman said Democrats shouldn’t automatically reject federal help even if it comes from the Trump administration. “When 600 people are killed in Chicago once every year, roughly, I think it is entirely appropriate,” he said.

Recalling his time as a small-town mayor dealing with gun violence, Fetterman said he personally asked for assistance when needed. “I would be grateful for help just because Trump is calling for something X, Y, and Z, then that doesn’t mean you have to necessarily oppose that," he said.

He also downplayed fears around National Guard deployments, recounting his own experience. “I would see a lot of National Guard people. It wasn’t one, honestly, wasn’t a big deal. They were just friendly, standing around,” he recalled. “This was not the Russian army. This was our sons or daughters, our fathers or mothers kind of a thing.”

On immigration, Fetterman supported secure borders and deporting criminals but rejected mass workplace raids. “It is not helpful to raid a factory and round up them in deport them,” he said. “I don’t think that it is appropriate to go like a slaughterhouse in Nebraska and round them up.” He added, “We don’t and shouldn’t target otherwise hard-working migrants that are just effectively making a significant contribution to our economy.”

Despite his criticism, Fetterman stressed he isn’t abandoning his party. “I’m a Democrat. I just made a significant investment in the Pennsylvania Democratic Party. I’m not changing my party,” he said. Still, he made clear he won’t fall in line automatically. “I will disagree with my party at some time. I’m going to have an independent view on what I think was right or wrong.”

With Democrats facing minority status and gearing up for the 2026 midterms, Fetterman advised his colleagues to reconnect with voters or keep losing. “We’ve really lost our connection with American voters in ways,” he said. “And I think we can’t just be well, Trump is always wrong, or that we’re going to set the country on fire or whatever. That’s not true either, of course.”

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