Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., told Newsmax on Monday that the shooting at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner shows the need to build a ballroom at the White House.
Fetterman told "The Record With Greta Van Susteren" his fellow Democrats are crazy for refusing to fund the Department of Homeland Security.
"All this time that DHS has been shut down, these resources have been sidelined for no reason," Fetterman said.
The Pennsylvania senator noted shutting down DHS will not lead to the reforms at Immigration and Customs Enforcement that Democrats are clamoring for.
"Iran already has had an established history of wanting to assassinate Trump," Fetterman said. "They would have had months to plan on that.
"Honestly, I would say we got really lucky, not because the president wasn't hurt, but there were any other people in that line could have been harmed as well," Fetterman added. "You had [Vice President JD] Vance, you had Trump, you had [Speaker Mike] Johnson, you had [Secretary of State Marco] Rubio, you have all these kinds of people closely right there."
Fetterman said his Democrat colleagues need to drop their Trump Derangement Syndrome and build the ballroom.
"As Democrats, we want to be the party of abundance, but we have a history of shutting things down or taking years and years and years to do the very basic kinds of things," Fetterman said.
President Donald Trump will not even be in office by the time the proposed ballroom would be completed.
"This isn't really for him," Fetterman said. "You could have a lot more inclusive, frequent, and secure events in a facility like that."
Fetterman said he has been to White House events where people were in tents.
"That's not the most powerful country in the world where people trudging around in sod in tents for, for state events," Fetterman said.
Fetterman reiterated that Americans were lucky no one was seriously hurt at the event.
"So why are we arguing about — is the ballroom too big? Is it this or this?" Fetterman said.
"Let's just, let's do this, and let's have a little foresight too, because we are putting politicians, senators, and congressmen out there between now and November. Let's use our head about that before we have to deal with 'a lucky accident,' one that didn't happen the other night."
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Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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