Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman (D) now says he never believed the most outlandish Trump-Russia claims his party spent the first half of Trump’s presidency promoting on a nightly basis.
Fetterman appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast Saturday for a wide-ranging and introspective interview where he touched on a number of topics, including Trump’s appeal to people who have no faith in the political system.
“The appeal is that people think that the system is completely rigged and it’s captured by money and special interests,” comedian and podcast king Joe Rogan said on his show.
“Here’s a guy who is outside of this system completely and the evidence of that is how the system turned against him, and how you got to see people on television every night talking about Russiagate, talking about how he’s a puppet of Putin, talking about the Steele Dossier, talking about all these different things that turned out not to be true,” Rogan continued until Fetterman cut him off.
The first two years of Trump’s presidency were bombarded with false claims that he was a pawn of Russia and that Russian meddling swung the 2016 election in his favor. In 2018, special counsel Robert Mueller found no collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia after a lengthy investigation that turned Mueller into a liberal hero.
The Steele Dossier, an explosive document crafted by a former British intelligence official, was uncritically spread by news outlets and used by the FBI to conduct surveillance on former Trump adviser Carter Page. The document’s most extravagant claims were eventually debunked after its claims were central to hysterical speculation about Trump being a Russian asset.
“I never bought into some of that kind of stuff,” Fetterman asserted.
“If anyone that spent any time on the ground in one of those states, it’s like it’s very clear that wasn’t because of some small kinds of tweets and things and things like, whatever. It’s undeniable,” Fetterman added.
Fetterman’s comments are similar to those he made to the New York Times in an interview published last week. Fetterman observed that Trump has a “special connection” to Pennsylvanians, even though he does not necessarily understand the former president’s appeal. Pennsylvania is arguably the most important state of this election cycle and polls show it is a toss-up between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Rogan’s show is the most popular podcast in the world and typically features long-form interviews that cover many different subjects and stray into personal territory. The host and Fetterman discussed subjects ranging from immigration politics to battling depression for a little over two hours.
Fetterman appeared comfortable undertaking the interview two years after he nearly died of a stroke during his senate campaign and struggled with his speaking abilities. Last year, Fetterman suffered from depression and was hospitalized as he recovered from the stroke.
Trump and his running mate, Senator J. D. Vance (R., Ohio) have both appeared on the show for interviews at Rogan’s studio over the past few weeks. Rogan attempted to have Harris on her show but declined her campaign’s request that he travel to her and limit the interview to only an hour, a much shorter time span than Rogan’s regular episodes.