Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) is not easily intimidated. And he’s asking his fellow Democrats to do the same.
Fetterman spoke with The New York Times in an interview published Wednesday and urged Democrats to “just grab a grip” following Vice President Kamala Harris’ loss to President-elect Donald Trump on Nov. 5.
“We’re not even at Thanksgiving, and Democrats just can’t stop losing our minds every fifteen minutes. We really need to pace ourselves, or, you know, FFS [for f—‘s sake], just grab a grip,” he said.
The NYT reporter asked Fetterman if his party’s leaders “need to do an analysis of what went wrong.”
“Realize that this is how elections go. At least for the next two years, they’re going to have the opportunity to write the narrative and to drive the narrative,” the Keystone State lawmaker said.
He added patience is key moving forward, especially in light of who Trump has chosen for his Cabinet.
“I’m just saying, buckle up and pack a lunch, because it’s going to be four years of this. And if you have a choice to freak out, you know, on the hour, then that’s your right. But I will not,” Fetterman said. “I’m not that dude, and I’m not that Democrat. I’m going to pick my fights.”
He urged his colleagues to remain calm.
“If you freak out on everything, you lose any kind of relevance,” he said.
The reporter, Jess Bidgood, also asked if liberals have “done too much freaking out” about Trump.
“It’s symbiotic. One feeds off the other. The Democrats can’t resist a freakout, and that must be the wind under the wings for Trump,” Fetterman said.
At this point, as Fetterman noted, it’s too late to have a “freakout.”
The “freakout and all the anxiety and all that should have been before Nov. 5,” he said.
“Does clutching the pearls so hard — does that change anything?” he asked. “Did it work? Did it change the election? Was it productive? And, like, I can’t believe the outrage. That has to be candy for Trump.”
Harris lost to Trump by 1.7 percentage points in Pennsylvania and Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) lost his seat to Republican Dave David McCormick in a tight race.
