White House mocks liberal newspaper for being puzzled at drop in fentanyl trafficking
The Washington Post is being mocked online and by the White House for “pathetic” reporting on what the liberal-leaning news outlet calls a “mysterious” decline in fentanyl flowing across the border.
Fentanyl is a dangerous drug that is often trafficked into the United States across the southern and northern borders by cartels and other criminal elements. In 2024, fentanyl was linked to the death of 48,422 persons in the United States, according to the CDC.
During his campaign, President Donald Trump vowed to wage a war against fentanyl traffickers through increased border security and by cracking down on illegal immigration. Since taking office, Trump has deployed U.S. troops to the southern border, targeted cartels and transnational criminal groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” and hit cartel leaders with sanctions.
According to the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), the U.S. law enforcement seizures of fentanyl, which the group explains is a “key indicator of broader total smuggling at and between the southern border’s ports of entry,” have dropped 50% since the November election. CIS states that this significant decline indicates a “greater decline in total fentanyl smuggling.”
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The Washington Post reports on this decline, stating that U.S. seizures at the southern border are down by almost 30 percent compared with the same period in 2024. The outlet, however, states that the drop “represents something of a mystery.”
“After years of confiscating rising amounts of fentanyl, the opioid that has fueled the most lethal drug epidemic in American history, U.S. officials are confronting a new and puzzling reality at the Mexican border. Fentanyl seizures are plummeting,” wrote the Post.
Among the possible reasons listed by the outlet are cartels finding other ways to smuggle the drug into the U.S., cartel internal strife, ingredient shortages and a possible decline in demand.
Though baffled by the reason for the decline, The Washington Post posited that “public health authorities are concerned that the Trump administration’s budget cuts could hurt programs that have promoted overdose antidotes and addiction treatment.”
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The article was widely mocked by conservatives online.
Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wis., commented on X, “The Washington Post is reporting a ‘mysterious drop’ in fentanyl seizures at the southern border. Mystery solved! The Trump effect is working.”
Charlie Kirk, a popular conservative influencer, also commented, saying: “Four months into the Trump administration, The Washington Post is marveling at the ‘mysterious’ drop in fentanyl seizures on the Mexican border … Is the Post simply lying, or are their reporters as dumb as the people they’re writing propaganda for?”
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The Department of Homeland Security’s official X account also replied, commenting: “It’s no mystery. On day one, [President] Trump closed our borders to drug traffickers.”
DHS said that “from March 2024 to March 2025 fentanyl traffic at the southern border fell by 54%.”
“The world has heard the message loud and clear,” said DHS.
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Several top White House spokespersons also weighed in. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt simply called the Post “pathetic,” and White House Communications Director Steven Cheung said: “They can’t stand that President Trump’s strong border policies have led to a DECREASE in fentanyl coming into the U.S.”
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Abigail Jackson, another White House spokeswoman, told Fox News Digital that “the drop in fentanyl seizures at the border is only a mystery to Washington Post reporters suffering from Trump-Derangement Syndrome.”
“As of March, fentanyl traffic at the Southern Border had fallen by more than half from the same time last year – while Joe Biden’s open border was still terrorizing America,” said Jackson. “Everyone else knows the simple truth: President Trump closed our border to illegal drug traffickers and Americans are safer because of it.”
The Washington Post did not immediately respond to a request by Fox News Digital for comment.
Treasury secretary reminds CBS host of past remarks over tariff inflation concerns
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent called out CBS “Face the Nation” anchor Margaret Brennan on Sunday for warning in March that Trump administration tariffs on imported goods would raise prices for American consumers after inflation cooled to a four-year low in April.
During an interview on Sunday, the CBS anchor again challenged Bessent to respond to the economic concerns President Donald Trump‘s tariffs posed to consumers, but Bessent argued that “alarmist” predictions about inflation increasing had been wrong before.
“Everything has been alarmist, that the inflation numbers are actually dropping,” he said, referring to the latest Bureau of Labor Statistics report showing that the inflation rate fell to 2.3% in April, the lowest level in over four years.
Brennan pressed Bessent about retail giants like Walmart and Target weighing price hikes due to the uncertainty surrounding the tariffs.
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“When you go back-to-school shopping, things are going to cost more,” Brennan told Bessent.
Bessent disagreed, saying retailers like Home Depot have said they don’t plan to raise prices in response to the tariffs.
Brennan insisted consumers would feel economic pain from Trump’s strategy. She quoted from a Wall Street Journal opinion piece by Karl Rove warning that companies like Walmart would not be able to break even if they couldn’t absorb the tariff costs.
“But, for consumers, the reality is, there will either be less inventory or things at higher prices, or both,” she said.
Bessent reminded Brennan that in March, when he previously appeared on “Face the Nation,” she had reported that tariffs could lead to inflation.
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“Margaret, when we were here in March, you said there was going to be big inflation. There hasn’t been any inflation,” Bessent retorted. “Actually, the inflation numbers are the best in four years. So why don’t we stop trying to say this could happen and wait and see what does happen?”
“Just trying to gauge for people planning ahead here,” Brennan replied before moving on to ask about how much Trump’s recent announcement that he was doubling the tariffs on steel would impact the construction industry.
During that March interview, Brennan cited a study from the think tank, The Peterson Institute, predicting that Trump’s then-10% tariffs on China and 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico would cost U.S. households an additional $1,200 a year.
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Brennan previously clashed with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick over Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariff announcement during an April interview where she asked whether “AI” was used to craft the tariff announcement.
Trump’s tariff strategy faced legal challenges last week after a federal court ruled unanimously to block the sweeping tariffs he imposed on dozens of countries.
The U.S. Court of International Trade ruled Wednesday that Trump overstepped his authority to impose tariffs under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).
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On Thursday, a federal appeals court temporarily paused the lower court’s ruling, allowing the policy to stay put as the legal battle plays out, according to Reuters.
Beloved budget retailer reopening stores in nine states after filing for bankruptcy
Nearly 80 more Big Lots stores are slated to reopen this week.
A total of 78 locations across nine states will resume operations on Thursday as Variety Wholesalers completes its fourth “wave” of reopening Big Lots stores that the company bought following the discount retailer’s recent bankruptcy.
The Big Lots stores reopening this week are located throughout Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia, Variety Wholesalers said.
Big Lots filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the fall and subsequently reached a sale agreement with Gordon Brothers Retail Partners through which Variety Wholesale Partners bought 219 Big Lots stores.
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The discount retailer had entered bankruptcy to undergo a restructuring and facilitate a sale.
When it filed for bankruptcy, it said it was “adversely affected by recent macroeconomic factors such as high inflation and interest rates that are beyond its control” like other retailers, leading it to see a pullback in discretionary spending on home and seasonal products among its “core customers.”
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Variety Wholesalers started reopening the Big Lots stores it bought in April.
The first “wave” of reopenings included nine locations open to customers again, with another 132 of the Big Lots locations now owned by Variety Wholesalers relaunching in two subsequent batches in May.
Variety Wholesalers is looking to hold a “grand opening celebration” in the fall with “exciting new deals” at all 219 of its locations, it said.
According to the company, its “phased reopening strategy” has been “met with an overwhelmingly positive customer response.”
“This enthusiastic response reinforces our belief that taking Big Lots! back to the roots of what made it a huge success resonates with our customers,” Variety Wholesalers CEO Lisa Seigies said in a statement. “Providing great value will always be our core mission.”
The successful reopenings have “spurred Variety Wholesalers to explore options for acquiring additional Big Lots! locations,” the company said.
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New Karen Read text scandal emerges — and it’s not the one from last year
Special prosecutor Hank Brennan may have dulled the impact of inappropriate text messages the lead homicide detective sent regarding Karen Read days before she was charged with the murder of John O’Keefe – but they’re still damaging to the state’s case and not just because he used vulgar and obscene language, experts say.
The texts were a bomb that blew up the first trial when they were read with Michael Proctor on the witness stand, and it ended with a deadlocked jury last year. This time around, prosecutors decided not to call him as a witness, and it was his childhood friend Jonathan Diamandis who – visibly uncomfortable – walked the jury through the conversation.
But beyond the crass remarks about Read, experts say less explosive messages about Proctor’s early opinions of the investigation could be damning.
“Proctor is mentally begging [the defense] to call him,” retired Massachusetts Superior Court Judge and Boston College law professor Jack Lu told Fox News Digital. “Now that the texts are in, they will not call Proctor unless they are convinced they have lost – the old ‘Hail Mary’ pass.”
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Lu said the defense team gained some ground with Diamandis on the stand, but with Brennan facing the text chain head-on, the messages were likely not a significant shift in Read’s favor.
“Will the jury be truly shocked by abusive texts from a police officer investigating a person they think is a murderer?” Lu said. “I doubt it.”
Read is accused of hitting her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O’Keefe, with her Lexus SUV during a drunken argument before leaving him to freeze to death in the front yard of a friend’s home in the early morning hours of Jan. 29, 2022.
Diamandis testified he has been in a group chat with Proctor for more than a decade and was privy to text messages sent during the investigation into O’Keefe’s death.
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The Massachusetts State Police fired Proctor in March after an internal investigation found he had shared sensitive and confidential information about the case with people outside of law enforcement.
Read’s first trial revealed inappropriate text messages the lead investigator sent as the case was unfolding.
“The messages prove one thing, and that Michael is human – not corrupt, not incompetent in his role as a homicide detective and certainly not unfit to continue to be a Massachusetts State Trooper,” his sister, Courtney Proctor, previously said in a statement.
On cross-examination, Brennan asked Diamandis to read to the jury Proctor’s messages from the day O’Keefe’s body was discovered.
“She waffled him,” Proctor wrote, referring to Read. “I looked at his body in the hospital.”
Proctor weighed in with his own observations of what may have happened to O’Keefe, initially agreeing with another member of the group chat that the Boston police officer may have been beaten to death.
“That’s what I initially thought after talking to [a] Canton paramedic,” Proctor wrote. “Then I saw the guy.”
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Asked for more details, Proctor replied with a message implicating Read, telling his friends, “she hit him with her car.”
“Gotcha,” one pal wrote. “[O’Keefe] was frozen in the driveway, and she didn’t see him.”
“That’s another animal we won’t be able to prove,” Proctor replied. “They arrived at the house together, got into an argument, she was driving and left.”
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The text messages raise the possibility that Proctor reached a conclusion on O’Keefe’s death before the investigation finished, according to Massachusetts defense attorney Grace Edwards. He sent them around 11 p.m. on Jan. 29, 2022 – the day O’keefe had been found. An autopsy wasn’t completed until two days later.
“These text messages were from the night of John O’Keefe’s death, and it appears that Michael Proctor has already come to a conclusion about the case – before the medical examiner’s report,” Edwards told Fox News Digital. “His conclusion was premature.”
Proctor’s alleged rush to implicate Read could have caused him to ignore evidence pointing to other possibilities surrounding the cause of O’Keefe’s death, according to Edwards.
“Michael Proctor is not qualified to make a determination about how John O’Keefe died,” Edwards said. “That is what we have medical examiners for. Based on the text messages, Michael Proctor had come to that conclusion all on his own within hours of O’Keefe’s death.”
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Criminal defense attorney Mark Bederow also pointed to Proctor’s professional inability to determine what – or who – killed O’Keefe, and how the immediate assumption could have been detrimental to the investigation.
“[Proctor] is not qualified to say that,” Bederow told Fox News Digital. “There is an abundance of evidence of Proctor’s investigative tunnel vision and bias.”
As the tone of the texts shifted, Diamandis told the courtroom he did not want to continue reading the messages aloud because they contained “uncomfortable words,” prompting Brennan to read them and ask Diamandis to confirm that what he was reading was an accurate depiction of the texts on the chain.
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“Yeah, she’s a babe,” Proctor wrote. “Weird Fall River accent though. No a–.”
The text chain turned obscene at points, including mocking Read over a purported medical issue.
Proctor is subject to witness sequestration and declined to comment.
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Proctor is on the defense witness list, but Read’s team called Diamandis instead, in what Edwards believes is a risky move by the defense.
“Brennan has now taken the wind out of the sails of the defense because the reading of those texts did not have the impact that they did during the first trial when Michael Proctor read them himself,” Edwards said.
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The choice to call Proctor’s childhood friend could be viewed as a safe way for the defense team to drop the bombshell text chain without risking cross-examination by the state.
On the other hand, the defense can now point to the fact that prosecutors declined to put their lead investigator on the witness stand, Bederow said.
“They’ll likely pursue a ‘missing witness’ instruction from the court in which the judge will inform jurors they may draw an adverse inference against prosecution for their failure to call Proctor,” he said. “It is virtually unheard of for the prosecution not to call the lead investigator in a murder case, but of course it’s also extraordinarily rare that the lead investigator was terminated for unprofessional behavior and bias on [the same] case.”
Record-breaking number of illegal alien arrests made in blue-state ICE dragnet
Operation Patriot, the largest ever ICE operation, resulted in the arrest of nearly 1,500 illegals, including murderers, rapists, drug traffickers and child sex predators, in the deep blue sanctuary city-heavy state of Massachusetts.
Operation Patriot concluded on Saturday after netting 1,461 illegal aliens throughout the Greater Boston area and the state of Massachusetts, which includes numerous sanctuary jurisdictions.
Sources at ICE told Fox News that 790 of those arrested had criminal convictions or charges and 277 had final removal or deportation orders. The sources said that all the targeted criminals were roaming the streets of Massachusetts cities freely before being apprehended.
The operation ran throughout May and included ICE teams from other states in the Northeast and authorities from the FBI, DEA, and ATF.
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Fox News was embedded with ICE Boston on Thursday as part of this operation. While Fox News was embedded with ICE, agents arrested a murderer, two child rapists, including one living next to a playground, one fentanyl trafficker, one adult rapist, and one child sexual assaulter, all within the span of a few hours.
Prior to this, the largest ICE operation was Operation Tidal Wave in Florida, which netted 1,120 arrests. Fox News was told Operation Patriot was significantly more difficult because, unlike Florida, ICE received no local assistance from Massachusetts sanctuary jurisdictions.
Sources said the operation was in direct response to leaders in the city of Boston and Massachusetts refusing to cooperate with ICE.
The sources said “hundreds” of the arrested targets had been released by local sanctuary jurisdictions with ICE detainers ignored. ICE also said it encountered daily interference from anti-ICE activist groups throughout Massachusetts.
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Massachusetts Democratic Governor Maura Healey has responded to ICE’s operations in her state with outrage. Healey took to social media on Sunday evening to demand answers after ICE agents arrested 18-year-old Marcelo Gomes, who was an illegal and a junior at Milford High School in Milford, Massachusetts.
In her post, Healey says she is “disturbed and outraged” and that she wants answers immediately explaining why the student was taken into immigration enforcement’s custody.
Healey asserted that “the Trump Administration continues to create fear in our communities, and it’s making us all less safe.”
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Speaking during a press conference on Monday, acting ICE Director Todd Lyons commented on the resistance from Massachusetts leaders, saying: “If sanctuary cities would change their policies and turn these violent criminal aliens over to us into our custody instead of releasing them into the public, we would not have to go out to the communities and do this.”
Lyons said the operation “just showed we need to come back and we’re going to keep coming back because ICE is going to make sure that we keep our community safe and keep our neighborhood safe from these sex offenders and these criminal aliens.”
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The press conference was held the same day that an illegal alien in Massachusetts named Lorenzo Lopez Alcario was arraigned on charges of raping a child with force. A copy of the charges obtained by Fox News Digital alleges that the child was tied during the rape.
Commenting on the arraignment and on Operation Patriot, Jon Fetherston, a former Massachusetts migrant shelter director, told Fox News Digital that Democratic Governor Maura Healey’s resistance to federal immigration enforcement operations is “not only unsafe for ICE agents, it’s unsafe for all of us.”
Fetherston added that Healey’s policies are “creating a climate of lawlessness, where even convicted criminals are shielded from federal enforcement.”
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“That’s not compassion — it’s recklessness,” he said.
Healey’s office did not immediately respond to a request by Fox News Digital for comment.
NFL star marries actress Hailee Steinfeld, comedian makes surprise appearance
Josh Allen finally has a ring.
No, it may not be a Super Bowl ring that Buffalo Bills fans might prefer him to have, but the reigning MVP has a more important one after tying the knot with Hailee Steinfeld on Saturday.
It was a quick engagement for the couple – Allen proposed to Steinfeld back in November.
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Allen went with the classic-black tuxedo, while Steinfeld rocked a strapless dress with arm-length gloves in their Montecito, California, celebration.
Allen’s teammate, Dion Dawkins, said earlier last year the quarterback was “in love” with the “Starving” singer. The two have been dating since May 2023.
Comedian Larry David was also in attendance for the wedding but it was unclear why he was there. David is a noted New York Jets fan and it’s likely he and Allen have had interactions in the past.
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Allen’s Bills fell short in the AFC title game once again, losing to the Kansas City Chiefs in the playoffs for the fourth time in the last five years.
He led the NFL with a 77.3 QBR, leading his squad to yet another division title. The doubters were out after Buffalo traded Stefon Diggs to the Houston Texans in the offseason, but the Bills were the first team to clinch a division in the league this past season.
Allen started in all 17 games in the 2024 season – he played one snap in the season finale to keep his consecutive-starts streak alive. He threw for 3,731 yards and 28 touchdowns while rushing for another dozen.
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He has finished inside the top-5 of MVP voting in four of the last five years.
TV star defends her decision to cut ties with father for crossing boundaries
Kristin Cavallari stands by her decision to distance herself from her father.
In a recent interview with People, the 38-year-old reality TV star opened up about her decision to cut out her father from her life, calling it “the best decision I’ve ever made.”
“I mean, honestly, and this might sound messed up to some people, but it’s the best decision I’ve ever made, cutting my dad out of my life. Such a weight has been lifted from me,” she told the outlet. “There’s not one day where I miss him. I don’t know if it was two or three years ago, but I mean, I was an adult, let’s say I was 35 [when I decided]. It was 35 years of buildup to that point.”
She went on to explain that it “was something that I had been wanting to do for a long time” and it wasn’t until after he “crossed the boundary with my kids” and wouldn’t apologize that she pulled the trigger.
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Cavallari shares three children with her ex-husband, former NFL quarterback Jay Cutler, including sons Camden, 12, Jaxon, 11, and daughter Saylor, 9.
“Like, you’re just gaslighting me. I don’t have time for that anymore,” she continued. “If someone’s not bringing you joy, if people are only bringing you hurt and sadness and anger, what is the point? Even if it’s a parent, life’s too short.”
The reality star first opened up about her decision to cut her dad out of her life in December 2023 during an appearance on her podcast, “Let’s Be Honest,” in which she spoke with psychologist Dr. Sherrie Campbell.
“I mean, honestly, and this might sound messed up to some people, but it’s the best decision I’ve ever made, cutting my dad out of my life. Such a weight has been lifted from me.”
During a discussion about narcissism, Cavallari shared that she never felt comfortable around her father, as he was constantly putting her down as a child and that she didn’t realize he was a narcissist until she was an adult.
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“But then the flip side of that is, sometimes he would put me on this pedestal and talk me up,” she said on her podcast. “Now, as an adult looking back, it was when it benefited you and made you look good.”
She further elaborated on what it was like growing up with her father on a December 2024 episode of Bunnie Xo’s podcast, “Dumb Blonde,” where she described the relationship as having “so many layers to it. It’s so complicated…. It really is disgusting.”
Cavallari referred to her cutting contact with her father as “the last thing I needed to do in my healing journey,” even comparing her marriage to Cutler to her relationship with her father, saying, “I was repeating a pattern with my dad.”
“I hadn’t done the work on my relationship with my dad. That’s what you do. I ended up marrying my dad,” she said. “And so it really forced me to then to work through my s—, which is what I did. So when we got a divorce for the last five years, quite honestly, I’ve really taken the time to get my s— together so that I don’t then make the same mistake.”
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Pennsylvania senator bucks party on border, Israel amid progressive backlash
Sen. John Fetterman is comfortable taking a sharp stance against his own party, a point that he reiterated during a forum moderated by Fox News’ Shannon Bream alongside his Republican counterpart, Sen. Dave McCormick.
The Democratic maverick has made a name for himself as willing to buck his party’s marching orders, oftentimes siding with Republicans on thorny policy issues since coming to the Senate two years ago. Indeed, the lawmaker agreed on many issues with his fellow Pennsylvanian McCormick during the roughly half-hour forum.
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Fetterman addressed the repercussions that tend to come from his brand of bipartisanship when discussing his agreement with President Donald Trump’s handling of nuclear talks with Iran or the president’s push for a rare earth minerals agreement with Ukraine.
“That’s part of the bipartisanship where, you know, it’s getting more and more kind of, punitive to just agree with some of these things in the middle of the party right now,” he said.
He also called out his own party for his colleagues’ stances on Israel and immigration, and worked in a subtle jab at Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s handling of the government funding fight earlier this year.
Fetterman condemned the recent attack in Boulder, Colorado, and noted that parts of his party had “lost the argument” when it came to bucking antisemitism and standing behind Israel.
“For me, that moral clarity, it’s really firmly on Israel,” he said. “I refuse to allow to try to turn Israel into a pariah state, and that’s right in the middle of that.”
Fetterman also dug in on his support of immigration policies pushed by the GOP.
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He said that while he largely did not support Republicans’ efforts to ram Trump’s agenda through Congress, there was common ground to be had with his colleagues across the aisle when it came to putting a dent in the nation’s debt, and injecting more funding into the White House’s priorities at the southern border.
In fact, the only thing he said he supported among the sea of policy changes and spending would be the over $150 billion in the colossal package that would go toward building Trump’s border wall, bolstering Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the building of new immigration detention centers and facilities, among others.
“That’s a mistake that our party made, and that’s the border,” he said. “I absolutely support those kinds of investments to make our border secure as well.”
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He contended that Democrats did not handle the border properly when they controlled the White House, and noted the hundreds of thousands of migrants that were able to make their way into the U.S. under the Biden administration’s porous border policies.
“We can all agree that’s wrong,” he said. “Being very pro-immigration as [a] Democrat, it’s like you’re trying to think two things must be true, and sometimes that’s put me at the odds of my party and my base to assume that I changed my values, and that’s never changed. That’s never changed.”
He also levied subtle criticism of how Schumer, D-N.Y., handled the government funding showdown earlier this year, which saw the Democratic leader ultimately back down at the last minute from his desire to shutter the government over the GOP’s funding plan.
“I refuse to ever shut our government down,” Fetterman said. “And when we have that opportunity in September to do that, I will still be there, and … I’ll take the beating, because that’s, I think, what defines leadership.”
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But Fetterman’s rogue-like tendencies have led to intensified scrutiny in recent weeks for alleged erratic behavior, skipping out on votes and droves of staff leaving his office, criticism that Fetterman has rebuked.
The Philadelphia Inquirer’s editorial board argued in an opinion piece published on Sunday that if the lawmaker couldn’t handle the scrutiny, he should “step aside.” In response, Fetterman couched the criticism as part of a campaign against him for his position on Israel, the border and his dances with bipartisanship.
“It’s just part of a smear, and it’s just not accurate,” he said.