Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said Wednesday that the Democratic Party “lost the plot” when then–Vice President Kamala Harris labeled President Donald Trump a “fascist,” arguing that such rhetoric alienated voters and damaged her election prospects, as reported by The New York Post.
“When Vice President Harris referred to President Trump as a ‘fascist’ … I knew absolutely we lost the plot at that point,” Fetterman said during an appearance on Fox News’ Hannity.
Fetterman explained that calling President Trump a fascist also insulted the millions of Americans who voted for him.
“If you call the president or someone like a fascist, you are effectively calling the people who are going to vote for him … then they must be fascist too … or they support fascism and those things. And that is just not true.”
The Pennsylvania Democrat said that kind of divisive language hurt the party’s ability to connect with voters who may not share all of its views but still care deeply about the country.
He pointed to Harris’s remarks as a moment that signaled to him that Democrats had drifted away from productive political discourse.
“I don’t know why — and I have always refused to say that,” Fetterman said when asked about other Democrats who echoed Harris’s comparisons of Trump to Adolf Hitler.
He also connected the use of inflammatory rhetoric to real-world violence, including the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk last month.
“I refuse to do those kinds of things because that kind of extreme kinds of rhetoric makes it easier for those kinds of extreme kinds of actions — even like what happened to poor Charlie Kirk,” he said.
Fetterman said that he personally knows and respects many Americans who supported President Trump and rejected the notion that they are extremists.
“I happen to know and love a lot of people that voted for the president and they are not fascist, they are not Nazis, they’re not trying to destroy the Constitution and all those things,” Fetterman said.
“They just happen to have different priorities and they love our country in the same ways that Democrats do as well.”
Fetterman’s comments come as Democrats continue to assess internal divisions following Harris’s defeat in the 2024 presidential election. His remarks mark one of the most direct rebukes of the party’s messaging from within its own ranks, particularly as he called out Harris by name for alienating voters with what he described as reckless and counterproductive language.
