convention<\/a> is meant to fire up the conservative base ahead of midterm elections, when the president\u2019s party has historically lost seats.<\/p>\n\u201cI\u2019m always going to stand with America,\u201d Fetterman said. \u201cI\u2019m always going to reject the extremes and socialism and that anti-American way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Standing in front of a steel mill, Fetterman said he \u201cwill work with President Trump to fight and defend the steel way of life.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fetterman\u2019s decision is certain to stoke fears, already simmering among Democrats, that he will switch parties. Democrats need to pick up four GOP-held Senate seats in November to regain the majority. If Fetterman were to join the Republican Party, Democrats would need to pick up another seat to have control of the chamber. <\/p>\n
Fetterman said in a statement later Wednesday that he will not switch parties. He said his remarks were to introduce \u201ca great American and friend,” adding, \u201cWe are in different parties, but we are both Team PA.”<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a lifelong Democrat who votes overwhelmingly with my party – and should the Senate flip in November, I will still be the 51st vote that I ran on,” Fetterman said. <\/p>\n
Fetterman has grown increasingly isolated from his party as he maintains staunch support of Israel\u2019s war in Gaza and criticizes left-wing candidates who are members of the Democratic Socialists of America. He\u2019s often gone his own way in the Senate, voting with Republicans to end last year’s shutdown, supporting several of President Donald Trump’s nominees and opposing efforts to end the war in Iran.<\/p>\n
He has repeatedly said he wouldn\u2019t switch parties because of his support for labor unions, LGBTQ rights and other issues held dear by the left. <\/p>\n
Even as a Democrat, he would hold outsized power in his caucus if Democrats secure a narrow 51-49 majority that requires them to stick together unanimously to exercise their power.<\/p>\n
\u201cHow great is John Fetterman?\u201d McCormick said when the video wrapped up. \u201cThank you, Senator Fetterman, for your friendship. Thank you for your courage. And thank you for all you do for Pennsylvania.\u201d<\/p>\n
Right after Fetterman’s video finished, it was shared on a White House social media account with the caption \u201cBased John Fetterman.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democratic Sen. John Fetterman speaks to Republican midterm convention Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman speaks on video, standing in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282741,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[815,3145,117999,2258,19992,118001,4283,105,118002,7029,28,30,29,5610,117997,5019,16606,118000,117998,453],"class_list":["post-282740","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-america","tag-dave-mccormick","tag-democratic-sen-fetterman","tag-democrats","tag-fetterman","tag-gop-convention","tag-john-fetterman","tag-life","tag-outsized-power","tag-party","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-president-trump","tag-republican-midterm-convention","tag-republicans","tag-seat","tag-staunch-support","tag-video-wednesday","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282740","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282740"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282740\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282740"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282740"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282740"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Default](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789017971_661_author_avatar.png\"){kind=avatar}
<\/p>\n