[by governortomwolf, flickr.com, licence, image crop]
Regarding the presidential race of the next year, Senator John Fetterman gave his Democratic colleagues a direct message.
An enthusiastic backer of President Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign, Fetterman attacked Biden’s primary opponents, drawing a comparison between Democratic attacks on the president and writing a check to former President Donald Trump.
“Other Democrats that are now vocalizing and saying these incredibly unhelpful kinds of things—why? What’s your goal? Are you trying to diminish the president? Are you trying to strengthen Trump?”
The senator’s remarks coincide with the growing criticism of Biden coming from Representative Dean Phillips’ campaign. Although he began his White House candidacy on the promise to “strengthen” rather than “diminish” Biden, Phillips has transformed his campaign in the last several weeks into an aggressive one that has attacked Biden’s mental health and referred to the president as a danger to democracy.
The congressman referred to the removal of Phillips’ name from the Democratic presidential primary ballot in Florida and North Carolina as “undemocratic manipulation” and likened it to the political conflict in the Islamic Republic of Iran. This announcement caused a noticeable shift in the political landscape.
Phillips said to reporters last week in New Hampshire, “If Biden wasn’t a threat to democracy, he would say something about what happened in Florida.” “How can you, the president of the United States, condemn the former president, who was clearly a dangerous man, and do what he did in New Hampshire and allow what’s happening in Florida?”Phillips was alluding to Biden’s resolution to abstain from the nation’s first-ever primary in New Hampshire on January 23.
At a campaign briefing less than three months prior, Phillips had adopted a different stance, declaring,I’m here to celebrate the president. I do not have anything but admiration for the president.”
Fetterman—who doesn’t hesitate to criticize his peers—called Phillips’ recent remarks about the president “laughable,” claiming that the Minnesota Democrat’s campaign is a “dream for Trump” in an interview with The Washington Post.
It’s not just Phillips who believes that. Fetterman, who has been under fire leading up to the election of 2024,. He chastised California Governor Gavin Newsom last month for what appeared to be an anti-Biden campaign.
Even in the event that Biden decides not to seek reelection, Newsom has consistently refuted rumors of his aspirations to become president and declared he would not run for office. However, the governor has increased his national visibility.
He recently participated in a one-on-one debate with Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and met with President Xi Jinping in China.
Other than Biden, Fetterman stated in his speech at an Iowa Democratic Party dinner that two Democrats are “running for president right now.”