Over the last year, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has backed Donald Trump’s plays more often than not, but he just did an about-face after calling out his party’s rhetoric on the SAVE Act.
Trump recently pressed the issue, telling Congress he would not sign another piece of legislation until the SAVE Act was passed, and Fetterman’s decision to call out the bogus Jim Crow 2.0 rhetoric by Dems surely came into play on that stance.
Instead, Fetterman just announced that he will NEVER vote for the legislation as is currently written.
When Democrats were calling the SAVE Act Jim Crow 2.0, Fetterman was like a poker player holding the nuts and snap-calling a bluff all-in bet on the flop.
He did not want to be associated with it, and he very loudly called out his party over this nonsensical rhetoric.
He told Fox News’ Kaleigh McEnany, "I would never refer to the SAVE Act as like Jim Crow 2.0 or some kind of mass conspiracy. But that's part of the debate that we were having here in the Senate right now. And I don't call people names or imply that it's something gross about the terrible history of Jim Crow."
Trump likely took that as a sign that Fetterman would back the bill, but if you look at the statement, he was very measured about it. He knows the overwhelming majority of Americans support voter ID, but he never said he would support that bill. He only discussed the debate about it and the idiotic rhetoric from Democrats.
Fetterman also took a swing at Democrats regarding Israel and Iran, a position that he has never even considered wavering on. This had to give Trump more confidence in making his play on the SAVE Act. After all, you have to strike while the iron is hot, right?
I still remember laughing hysterically when Fetterman was seen taunting liberals by waving an Israeli flag at anti-Israel protesters. He was committing political suicide at the time, and he did not care.
He still has that stance. When discussing the son of the Ayatollah Khamenei taking over, he snap-called again, stating, “They should kill him, too. Kill every last member of their leadership.”
He then added, “I do absolutely support having Israel just eliminate him, along with any other parts of the leadership. I’m always going to support that. I think it’s a good thing to continue to [eliminate] leaders of Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Iranians, too.”
What happens when you snap call with the nuts, and that bluff turns into a made hand on the turn? That sick-to-your-stomach moment, and I have been there far too many times, is overwhelming.
That is the Republican Party right now trying to digest that Fetterman will vote “No” on the Save Act in its current form. He stated, “I don’t support [it] in its current state to vote Save America. And the president is constantly critical on mail-in voting, and that’s ridiculous.”
“In-its-current-state…” let those words hang, because we are still only at the turn, and we have the river card to bail us out here. We have one out, which gives us about a 2% chance to win this bet, but we are still alive.
Fetterman would back the bill if the GOP made it a bit less stringent. Fetterman would sign on to having to show “basic state ID to vote,” and in most states, even blue states, you need a birth certificate to get that ID. We now have the advantage of knowing the river card before the dealer turns it. Fetterman just told us what it is. So, do we take advantage of that 2% out or do we just let the Dems rake in all the chips?
