Trump Is Offering John Fetterman His ‘Total and Complete Endorsement’ if He Joins the GOP: Report

(AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

President Donald Trump and the GOP are making Senator John Fetterman (D-PA) an offer they hope he won’t be able to refuse.

According to Politico’s Jonathan Martin, some Republicans believe that even if they lose four Senate seats this November, they may be able to hold on to control of the chamber by flipping Fetterman.

“Trump has made the sell, offering his patented total and complete endorsement plus a financial windfall to the Pennsylvanian. A handful of Senate Republicans are also gently feeling out Fetterman and responding to his concerns over the prospect of defecting from the Democratic Party, multiple high-level GOP officials tell me,” reported Martin, who was told, “I’m not changing” by Fetterman himself.

“I’m a Democrat and I’m staying one,” added the senior senator from the Keystone State.

But “When one senior Republican recently brought up the idea of becoming an independent to Fetterman, he absorbed the suggestion and didn’t embrace or reject the overture, according to a GOP official familiar with the conversation,” revealed Martin, who shed further light on the dynamics pushing Fetterman away from his party:

First, the Senate is akin to a high school cafeteria. And Fetterman these days is much more comfortable sitting, quite literally, with the Republicans. He never shows up for Democrat-only gatherings, such as the caucus’s regular luncheons.

Fetterman gets along well with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, the two text one another regularly.

…

After resisting it because he didn’t want to prompt chatter, Fetterman has now started to hang out in the Senate GOP cloakroom during long votes. For a time, he would remain alone and spend time between votes reading through his phone until [Katie] Britt came out to join him for meals. This was a way he didn’t have to enter either party’s mini-Capitol clubhouse. Now, though, Fetterman is spending hours with Senate Republicans in their cloakroom and in some leadership offices.

“If Fetterman does flip, according to officials who were given anonymity to talk about sensitive matters, it will be thanks in large part to his deepening friendship with a pair of senators and their high-profile spouses: Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), and his wife Dina, and Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), and her husband, Wesley,” noted Martin.

During an interview with Fox News last Wednesday, Fetterman dismissed the idea of crossing the aisle.

“My voting record actually reflects that I am a Democrat. You know, what’s changed me with many of my other colleagues is that I don’t agree and I use like extreme rhetoric and say, but I support what I think most Americans should agree with these things. You know, the Democratic Party, you know, we became an open border party, without a doubt. And now that’s wrong, and I support to make our border more security, and deport all of the criminals right now,” he said. “So I can’t be a Republican because in many other areas, I disagree on that. So whether if I’m politically homeless or whatever, but I’m staying in my party.”

Still, he burst out laughing after being asked about his relationship with his Democratic colleagues.

“Well, I mean, cordial,” replied Fetterman once he gathered himself. “But I’m not necessarily the popular guy, which is strange to me because it’s like, I am a Democrat and, you know, I’m the guy that flipped the seat.”

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