Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania said a secure border and support for immigration are not contradictory.
“I honestly don’t understand why it’s controversial to say we need a secure border,” Fetterman said in a clip of a CNN interview that was posted to Fox News.
“I’ve been very clear. In fact, that was weaponized against me as Republicans in my race that I’m very much strong a supporter of immigration and my wife’s family,” he said.
“And I think two things can be true at the same time: You can be very supportive of immigration, but we also need to have a secure border. And I really — I think about immigration is, we want to provide the American dream for any migrant, but it seems very difficult when you have 300,000 people showing up, encountered at our border to do that,” he said.
“And I think we need to do a reset, and we have to work together and develop a new comprehensive solution to that,” he said.
NEW: Senator John Fetterman once again defies his own party, asks why it’s controversial to want a secure border.
Answer: Because your party thinks it’s “racist.”
“I honestly don’t understand why it’s controversial to say we need a secure border.”
“The thing about immigration… pic.twitter.com/WM67ZfBxgt
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) January 22, 2024
During the interview, he was asked by host Jake Tapper about criticism he has received from progressives.
“I honestly don’t understand. I don’t understand why it’s controversial to anybody to decide that you’re going to stand with Israel in this situation,” he said.
Is John Fetterman right about the border?
Earlier in the interview, he said he disagreed with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is opposed to a two-state solution once the fighting in Gaza ends.
“I do believe that that doesn’t change the fact that Israel is our special ally. And we had that kind of relationship,” he said, according to CNN.
Fetterman, who once labeled himself a progressive, told the New York Post last week, “It’s not so much that I left the title, the title left me.”
“Increasingly, [progressives] moved and migrated into some positions that I don’t agree with, and I really just feel much more comfortable just being a Democrat,” he said.
In the Post interview, he doubled down on his positions on the border and Israel.
“There is a crisis,” he said. “We have a crisis at our border, and it can’t be controversial that we should have a secure border.”
He said Israel “is most reflective of the kinds of open, progressive, liberal policies, and it’s a strange paradox where the most progressive members of our party seem to not recognize that Israel is a nation that supports those values.”
Fetterman noted that the Oct. 7 massacre executed by Hamas was a turning point for him.
“I get emotional thinking about it. What if that was my children? What if that was my wife? Where does that kind of evil come from? I don’t know where the next bottom is … Those kinds of atrocities must never be allowed to survive and endure. It has to be destroyed,” he said.
