“I’d love to see him as a Republican,” President Donald Trump told reporters Saturday.
He was speaking, of course, of Sen. John Fetterman, the maverick Pennsylvania Democrat who’s been increasingly willing to break with his party in recent months.
Trump’s comment revved up a rumor mill that Fetterman himself recently sought to tamp down.
“I don’t have a reason” to jump ship to the Republicans, he assured CBS’ Major Garret two weeks ago.
Then he dropped a quiet bombshell.
“If I’m 51” — that is, the Senate’s 51st Democrat and the deciding vote for the body’s control — “then I don’t know.”
He continued the tease: “Let’s revisit after the midterms.”
Fetterman has every reason to be coy — it makes him Washington’s most powerful kingmaker.
If he does switch parties, or becomes an independent caucusing with the GOP, the Democrats’ Election Day hill gets very steep: It means they’ll need a net pick-up of five seats to take the Senate — improbable given socialist-adjacent candidates in places like Maine, Texas, Michigan and elsewhere.
But more importantly, a Fetterman exit would be an ominous signal of coming attractions for his party.
In 2024, the Democratic Party politburo lied about President Joe Biden’s fitness for a second term, then about Kamala Harris’ readiness for prime time.
These Big Lies cost them the election, as I predicted then on these pages.
In 2026, the Democrats’ Big Lie is about the Big Tent.
That’s because the party’s tent is “big” only for the extremist left.
If you want to “seize the means of production,” eliminate the Senate, the presidency and the Supreme Court, open the borders, defund the police, abolish prisons and deprive Israel of its right to self-defense, then top Democrats will lay down prostrate: You get a red-carpet welcome.
But if you question the trans-right agenda, you risk excommunication by the party’s activist class and mutiny by your own staff, as Rep. Seth Moulton learned in 2024.
If you want to close the borders, you’re a bigoted xenophobe.
If you don’t parrot Hamas’ lies about genocide, you’re a colonizer.
All grounds for excommunication, as Fetterman is finding out.
Former President Barack Obama has swooned for Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed, a candidate who can’t condemn the Muslim Brotherhood and refuses to say that the Nazi leadership in Tehran “is a greater threat” than the multiracial democracy in Israel.
New York Mayor Zoran Mandami blames Israeli Jews for the genocidal Oct. 7attack, while his wife boosts social posts celebrating that barbarism.
A decade ago, Democrats would have had nothing to do with this fetishization of terrorists. Today they mainstream it.
So where does that leave the likes of Fetterman — and the many Democrats like myself who fought for years for Democratic presidents and candidates?
When Fetterman this year said how “liberating” it was “not to be a progressive” — after announcing his unwavering support for Israel in 2023 — the knives came out.
His former staff members started a smear campaign; Rep. Brendan Boyle, a fellow Pennsylvania Democrat, called Fetterman “a disgrace.”
Back in July, Fetterman set a condition for leaving the Democratic Party.
“If our party ever becomes . . . the anti-Israel party, you know, that’s when I would leave,” he told the Hill Nation Summit. “That’s been a moral clarity for me.”
But half of House Democrats have already voted to cut off Israel aid — and with Democrats like New Jersey’s Adam Hamawy soon heading for Congress, the trend line is clear.
If Fetterman does leave, the impact could be enormous.
He reflects the values of not just the anti-terror centrists, but of a broad swath of working-class voters who share his stances on immigration, gender, crime, race and so much else.
That’s why his exit could start a trend.
Fetterman already enjoys a 77% approval rating among Pennsylvania Republicans and 48% approval statewide.
In his home state, as in the rest of the country, nearly 7 in 10 voters identify as moderate or conservative, and they strongly reject the socialist revolution.
So as the Democratic Jacobins try to guillotine him politically, they’ll only be executing themselves.
Within the Democratic Party, the center has collapsed: 70% of voters think the party is out of touch with everyday voters, and nearly every poll finds their cultural and economic ideas far to the left of the median voter.
Regardless of what happens on Nov. 3, that toxic brand bodes poorly for 2028 and beyond.
The Pennsylvania maverick clearly senses that moderates are no longer welcome in his party.
If he bails out after November, the question will be how many of us he takes with him.
Julian Epstein is the former chief counsel for the House Judiciary Democrats and the former staff director of the House Oversight Committee.