Fetterman “should be chairman of the Democratic Party”

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said Democrats should follow the lead of Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who has openly supported some of the GOP rhetoric on immigration.

“Listen to Fetterman. I mean, Fetterman should be the leader of the Democratic Party if they ever want to win the majority again,” McCarthy said in an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham on Thursday night.

His comments came a day after the House passed Rep. Nancy Mace’s (R-S.C.) bill to deport illegal immigrants convicted of sex crimes or domestic violence. More than 60 Democrats voted for the measure, but as a collective, McCarthy said the party was still “out of touch.”

The California Republican, who retired from Congress in 2023 after being ousted as speaker, criticized those who opposed the bill.

“I would expect Democrats to be talking like this a year ago, before the election. “Didn’t you hear what the voters said?” he continued. “Remember, this doesn’t mean throwing out everyone who came here illegally and broke the law…You have to sexually assault someone and they still want to protect them.”

Despite opposition, the House of Representatives earlier this month passed a bill named after murdered Georgia student Laken Riley that would require the detention of migrants arrested for theft. The bill, set to be voted on in the Senate on Friday, honors the woman killed by a Venezuelan migrant who was arrested for shoplifting in the lead-up to the attack and paroled in the United States

Fetterman recently advocated for deporting illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

“If they’re here illegally and committing crimes and things like that, I don’t know why anyone thinks it’s controversial that they all have to go,” Fetterman said in a separate interview with Fox News.

He said Democrats who don’t support similar approaches to immigration are “the reason we lost.”

The Pennsylvania senator appeared to be sympathetic to President-elect Trump’s Cabinet choices, hinting that he might support the confirmations of Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida) as secretary of state, Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense and Kash Patel as head of the FBI.

Fetterman recently met with Trump, who has threatened mass deportations of illegal immigrants, at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, a meeting the president-elect described as “fascinating.”

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