Fetterman defies 'punitive' punishment for breaking with Democratic Party during bipartisan discussion

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Sen. John Fetterman is comfortable taking a sharp stance against his own party, a point that he reiterated during a forum moderated by Fox News' Shannon Bream alongside his Republican counterpart, Sen. Dave McCormick.

The Democratic maverick has made a name for himself as willing to buck his party's marching orders, oftentimes siding with Republicans on thorny policy issues since coming to the Senate two years ago. Indeed, the lawmaker agreed on many issues with his fellow Pennsylvanian McCormick during the roughly half-hour forum. 

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Fetterman addressed the repercussions that tend to come from his brand of bipartisanship when discussing his agreement with President Donald Trump's handling of nuclear talks with Iran or the president's push for a rare earth minerals agreement with Ukraine.

"That's part of the bipartisanship where, you know, it's getting more and more kind of, punitive to just agree with some of these things in the middle of the party right now," he said.

He also called out his own party for his colleagues' stances on Israel and immigration, and worked in a subtle jab at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's handling of the government funding fight earlier this year.

Fetterman condemned the recent attack in Boulder, Colorado, and noted that parts of his party had "lost the argument" when it came to bucking antisemitism and standing behind Israel.

"For me, that moral clarity, it's really firmly on Israel," he said. "I refuse to allow to try to turn Israel into a pariah state, and that's right in the middle of that."

Fetterman also dug in on his support of immigration policies pushed by the GOP.

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He said that while he largely did not support Republicans' efforts to ram Trump's agenda through Congress, there was common ground to be had with his colleagues across the aisle when it came to putting a dent in the nation's debt, and injecting more funding into the White House's priorities at the southern border.

In fact, the only thing he said he supported among the sea of policy changes and spending would be the over $150 billion in the colossal package that would go toward building Trump's border wall, bolstering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the building of new immigration detention centers and facilities, among others.

"That's a mistake that our party made, and that's the border," he said. "I absolutely support those kinds of investments to make our border secure as well."

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He contended that Democrats did not handle the border properly when they controlled the White House, and noted the hundreds of thousands of migrants that were able to make their way into the U.S. under the Biden administration's porous border policies.

"We can all agree that's wrong," he said. "Being very pro-immigration as [a] Democrat, it's like you're trying to think two things must be true, and sometimes that's put me at the odds of my party and my base to assume that I changed my values, and that's never changed. That's never changed."

He also levied subtle criticism of how Schumer, D-N.Y., handled the government funding showdown earlier this year, which saw the Democratic leader ultimately back down at the last minute from his desire to shutter the government over the GOP's funding plan.

"I refuse to ever shut our government down," Fetterman said. "And when we have that opportunity in September to do that, I will still be there, and … I'll take the beating, because that's, I think, what defines leadership."

But Fetterman's rogue-like tendencies have led to intensified scrutiny in recent weeks for alleged erratic behavior, skipping out on votes and droves of staff leaving his office, criticism that Fetterman has rebuked.

The Philadelphia Inquirer's editorial board argued in an opinion piece published on Sunday that if the lawmaker couldn't handle the scrutiny, he should "step aside." In response, Fetterman couched the criticism as part of a campaign against him for his position on Israel, the border and his dances with bipartisanship.

"It's just part of a smear, and it's just not accurate," he said.