Fetterman on why he supports Trump's ballroom, and his shock at Democrats who doubt last assassination attempt
FIRST ON FOX — Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., discussed why he supports President Donald Trump’s White House ballroom project in an interview published Tuesday, where he also assailed members of his own party who doubted the validity of the April assassination attempt.
During an interview segment on "The Katie Miller Podcast," Miller and Fetterman discussed the April 25 shooting during the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner, which Trump was attending for the first time as president. Miller was also in attendance with her husband, White House senior advisor Stephen Miller.
"Now more than a third of my party thinks that was a hoax, that’s wild," Fetterman said in a clip obtained by Fox News Digital. "Everyone was there, you could confirm that was real in the middle of that. And the first assassination [attempt in Butler] where he was hit in the [ear], that was in my state. And how crazy, how dangerous and how awful that was. And half an inch over to the left … and that could have plunged our nation into untold chaos."
A poll in April found about one-third of Democratic respondents thought the April 25 shooting was staged.
Fetterman recounted how the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner could have impacted the country.
"And now here we were, back at that event and walking in, it takes 30 minutes to get to the table, you can confirm how crowded it is there… the entire line of succession is in a room not much bigger than where we [are] shooting this," he said.
"So that’s why, there should be a secure facility like a ballroom," the Pennsylvania senator added.
In May, Trump told reporters that the future White House ballroom would not just serve as an event venue, but as a hardened security structure designed to support presidential operations and large gatherings amid heightened concerns following the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
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Trump said the ballroom will run about six stories deep, describing the building as made of "impenetrable" steel and four-inch-thick glass. He said 9,000 pounds of concrete is being used.
"For me, he could start it today, it’s not going to be finished by the time the term’s up," Fetterman told Miller. "So it’s like that phrase, ‘Planting a tree that you are not going to sit under the shade of it,’ kind of thing. So it’s like a facility that’s necessary, anyone that’s been at those kinds of events at the House, it’s under a tent and people wearing shoes unlike yours in the mud and grass and that's just not what’s appropriate for a nation like ours."
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Fetterman's full interview with Miller will be published at 6 p.m. ET.
The appearance by Fetterman, whose steadfast support for Israel has made him no shortage of enemies on the left, on the conservative figure's podcast had far-left journalist Mehdi Hasan fuming.
Fox News’ Ashley J. DiMella contributed to this report.