OPEN MIND

John Fetterman Gushes Over ‘Kind and Cordial’ Trump on ‘The View’

The Democratic senator also teased how he might vote on two of Trump’s most controversial cabinet nominees.

Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman is praising Donald Trump for being “kind and cordial” during their meeting at Mar-a-Lago earlier this month.

On Monday’s The View Fetterman joined the hosts and gushed about their sit-down, saying “[Trump] was kind, he was cordial, [and] it wasn’t any kind of theater. It wasn’t trying to get your picture taken to put something out on social media, it was just really a conversation.” Fetterman was the first sitting Democrat senator to meet with Trump following his win in November.

“I just have a rule, like I’m going to engage and have a conversation that’s anyone playing it straight—and that’d be doing my job,” he continued on the show.

Fetterman has faced speculation that he may be looking to switch parties, as his friendships across the aisle grow and as does his willingness to praise Trump, who once accused the then-candidate of using drugs. Though Fetterman went after Trump over his accusations that Pennsylvanians were “cheating hard” to give the state to his opponent during the election, taunting him with expletives live on CNN, the senator has notably cooled toward the president.

Fetterman told the View hosts Monday, “Maybe some people would be critical of that, but for me, engaging the president, I think when you’re in this business, that’s part of the job,” he said, adding that people were “tired of the venom and the hate.”

That cooling has gotten so chill, however, that the senator has had to address questions about where his party loyalties lie, telling Semafor that rumors of a party switch were “amateur hour s--t” and “not gonna happen.”

The senator reiterated that sentiment Monday, repeating to the View hosts he’d be “a pretty bad Republican” if he were to switch, since he’s “pro-choice, pro-really strong immigration, pro-LGBTQ.” He did, however, portray Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts by a jury of his peers as the judicial system being “weaponized and targeted [at] political enemies for political gain” on Monday.

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Fetterman’s embracing of MAGA could potentially go further. Following his votes to confirm Trump picks Kristi Noem and Marco Rubio this past week, he told The View hosts that he would consider voting for Trump’s most controversial cabinet picks, Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“We, just like all of you, are going to watch the hearings and see how things go. I was committed to having an open dialogue with anyone and I’ve played it straight and that’s the same kind of rules that I play and that’s what I extend to them,” he said. “I can’t say I refuse to even spend some time to just hear them directly from them just the way I’m doing right now having a conversation, so that’s what I’ve decided and I haven’t regretted it.”

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Eboni Boykin-PattersonEntertainment Reporter

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