Couric to Fetterman: If You Don’t Believe We’re Living In An Autocracy, Would You Concede That Trump Is Doing Anti-Democratic Things?
Katie Couric pressed Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) to acknowledge that the United States is becoming an autocracy during an interview on her podcast. Fetterman disagreed, saying that labeling people as fascists or Nazis contributed to Democrats’ losses in 2024. “I guess so far for me, it’s like, you know, we have a difference here. It’s like if you believe we live in autocracy and I don’t,” Fetterman told Couric.
KATIE COURIC: You’ve said that Donald Trump, in your view, is not an autocrat because his presidency is, quote, the product of a Democratic election. But history has shown that even leaders who come to power through elections can still govern in anti-Democratic ways. So I have to ask, when you consider some of Donald Trump’s behaviors and policies like deploying federal forces to U.S. cities, undermining the Department of Justice’s independence, attempting to overturn the 2020 election, does that not trouble you deeply? SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): Well, of course, I was really the tip of the spear in the 2020 election in Pennsylvania where he claimed that it wasn’t like as a fair, safe election. Absolutely. I pushed back violently on that. And I don’t support many of these things that that are happening right now. I don’t I don’t ever vote for those things. But now for me, it’s like, you know, here we are. But I think at this point right now, we are not in an autocracy. You know, 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. And that expression, it’s not normal. It’s like, yes, it isn’t normal. But that doesn’t mean this is an autocracy right now. And what it does mean that we have a lot of hills that we can choose to die on. But I think for me, I’ve just been choosing some of the most difficult ones. And that’s where I’ve been and not supporting, you know, many of these things that are happening. COURIC: Do you think that Donald Trump is not conducting himself or not pushing policies, though, that you would consider to be anti-democratic? FETTERMAN: What I’m saying is a Democrat with a 90 percent record voting Democrat. That’s a fact. That’s not my opinion. That’s that’s my number. COURIC: No, I’m talking about Donald Trump’s some of the things that he’s doing. If you don’t believe we’re living in an autocracy, would you concede that some of the things that he is doing are clearly anti-democratic and also are potentially even unconstitutional? FETTERMAN: I guess so far for me, it’s like, you know, we have a difference here. It’s like if you believe we live in autocracy and I don’t. And I think we can both agree that we vast we don’t agree with the vast majority of those things that’s happened here right now. And I wouldn’t do those things. I wouldn’t have made those same kind of decisions for that. And and that’s that’s fine where we are right now, a committed Democrat. And we happen to have a different view of these things. You know, it’s like I don’t call people fascists or Nazis or compare people to Hitler. And I think that’s part of why we lost our election last year. You know, if you call the person that you might vote for, that implies that you must be a fascist or you’re trying to destroy our nation. And I know and I love some of those people and they’re not doing any of those things. So that’s that’s really the thing. So and the vast majority of Americans chose, chose that an option that I did not choose and actually campaigned the entire effectively the year for Harris and Biden after he before he dropped out. So so that’s exactly where where we are.
