White House slams Katie Couric for asking John Fetterman to reject Charlie Kirk and Trump

WASHINGTON, DC: The White House sharply criticized Katie Couric after she pressed Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman to publicly reject both Charlie Kirk and President Donald Trump.

Although Fetterman declined to denounce them, he acknowledged that he disagreed with much of their rhetoric. Couric’s remarks drew backlash from the Trump administration.

White House slams Katie Couric

In response to Katie’s remarks, White House Communications Director Steven Cheung blasted the podcast host in a post on X on Thursday, November 13.

"This washed up idiot @katiecouric is an absolute ghoul. She tries to justify the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk. Disgusting people like Katie should be shamed and embarrassed forever," Cheung wrote.

Katie Couric's remark that drew backlash

On Thursday’s episode of her podcast 'Next Question,' she asked Fetterman about whether he thought it was appropriate that Kirk's body was flown home on Air Force Two.

She continued, "Or if he should have been posthumously awarded the Medal of Freedom, she noted  that some critics felt those honors from the Trump administration were 'over the top in terms of mourning someone like Charlie Kirk.'"

Fetterman said it was the administration’s choice to make before the host interrupted him about Kirk’s past rhetoric, which she said some would label "extreme."

John Fetterman refuses to politicize Charlie Kirk's killing

The senator noted that while he didn't agree with many of the things Kirk said, it was "entirely appropriate" to allow people to grieve and respect their space without taking "that opportunity to push an argument or to remind people that, ‘Hey, I don't agree.'"  

"A father of young children was shot in public because of his political views, and that's a tragedy, and give people the space to grieve," he added.

Fetterman maintained that while he "didn't agree with much of it," Kirk's rhetoric would "never justify what's happened" and that he chose not to "take the opportunity to argue his views after children lost their father in the most violent, public way."

Katie Couric presses John Fetterman on Trump's actions

"So I have to ask when you consider some of Donald Trump's behaviors and policies, like deploying federal forces to US cities, undermining the Department of Justice's independence, attempting to overturn the 2020 election. Does that not trouble you deeply?" she asked.

"Of course," Fetterman replied, adding that he strongly pushed back on Trump's claim that Pennsylvania was not a "fair and free election."  

"But I think at this point right now, we are not in an autocracy," he continued. "We're in a democracy, and that's why they were able to shut our government down. And that doesn't mean that we appreciate what's happening." 

Continuing to press Fetterman on Trump, Couric asked if he felt that the policies the president is pushing are "anti-democratic." She then asked if, even if he doesn’t believe we’re living in an autocracy, he would at least concede that "some of the things that [Trump] is doing are clearly anti-democratic and potentially even unconstitutional."

As a "committed Democrat," Fetterman acknowledged that the two have different opinions on whether Trump is an autocrat or not, but he doesn't "call people fascists or Nazis or compare people to Hitler," and argued those comparisons are "part of why we lost our election last year."