Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) is warning his party about Elon Musk’s endorsement of former President Trump, which came shortly after the first attempted assassination against him in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13.
Musk, who routinely takes aim at Democrats on his social media platform, X, even campaigned alongside the 45th president during his historic return to Butler earlier this month, firing up the crowd.
Speaking to host Chris Stirewalt on “The Hill Sunday,” Fetterman emphasized that Pennsylvania is “the ultimate purple state” and Democrats would be unwise to dismiss Musks's alliance with Trump.
Trump has now made [the commonwealth] so competitive. And I want people to understand how how how popular he is in Pennsylvania. And one thing, you know, honestly, that really does have me concerned more than the polls. The polls is what I expected. But you know, now he is using and Musk is willing to actually show up at these kinds of rallies. And I witnessed that in Butler County a couple of days ago. You know, Musk is – most endorsements don’t count for much in this business. But Musk is incredibly popular and he has an appeal to a demographic that Democrats have been and [struggling] with the care and to some people, they see him as, that’s Tony Stark.
He’s the world’s richest man. And he’s undeniably a brilliant guy. So, I think that that is the situation for Democrats. We would have to acknowledge that. And it seems now, I see that on the front page of The New York Times, now talking about it. So you know that that’s a significant development for me in Pennsylvania that it would think would only make it more competitive here in my state.
During an appearance on "The Hill Sunday," @SenFettermanPA compared tech mogul @elonmusk to Tony Stark, highlighting that he appeals to a demographic that Democrats tend to struggle to identify with. https://t.co/VpHH2Pwz3T pic.twitter.com/YgXtaEnR7r
— The Hill (@thehill) October 13, 2024
"The Harris campaign has plenty of surrogates and important kinds of endorsements,” Fetterman said when asked who Vice President Kamala Harris could have counteract Musk. “But I would just say that it’s like, you know, some Democrats just, you know, just mock Musk and that, you know, we can laugh at this. We can goof at it. He’s jumping up and down and those things. Michael, you know, we ignore that is [a] problem. You know, we, I think we could do that [at] our peril.”