John Fetterman Brags That Brain Damage Made Him Abandon Progressives

During an appearance on Real Time With Bill Maher, Senator John Fetterman credited his near-fatal stroke with making him a conservative darling, describing it as “freeing.”

“There’s a line from the first Batman, Joker, he’s like, ‘I’ve already been dead once already. It’s very liberating,’” Fetterman told Maher on Friday. “That’s not reckless, that’s just freeing. It’s just freeing in a way. And I just think after beating all of that, I just really want to be able to say the things that I have to really believe in and not be afraid of if there’s any kind of blowback.”

Following the October 7 Hamas attack, Fetterman broke from the progressives who got him elected to saber-rattle for Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza. His stance has largely been antagonistic, trolling protesters rallying for a cease-fire by waving an Israel flag over them, laughing at military veterans getting arrested protesting for a cease-fire, and castigating the United States for abstaining from a cease-fire resolution instead of voting against it. He has described student encampment protests as “pup tents for Hamas” and spread debunked propaganda denigrating pro-Palestine demonstrations in Philadelphia.

Since adopting an aggressively pro-Israel stance, Fetterman has also backed harsher border policies—a curious stance given that he used to point to his wife’s undocumented status as a child to tout his progressive bona fides.

Fetterman frames his seismic shift as stances he’s always had, which his brain damage simply allowed him the freedom to embrace—despite constantly describing himself as a progressive through the years, seeking endorsement from the Democratic Socialists of America, and himself endorsing progressive candidates for office.

While progressives who campaigned hard for Fetterman feel betrayed by his shift, conservatives have celebrated Fetterman’s self-described brain damage–induced embrace of right-wing positions—itself a clear signal he’s garnering the wrong audience.

“It’s heartwarming to see regular people using their brain,” said one account on X (formerly Twitter) in response to a white nationalist disinformation account boosting Fetterman’s interview with Maher.

“If only there was some way we could repeat this experiment with other elected officials,” replied another user in response to a Fox News post about how Fetterman’s brain damage “freed” him.

Pop singer Chappell Roan, whose star has quickly ascended over the last five months, announced that she recently turned down an invitation to perform for the president of the United States during the annual New York’s Governor’s Ball music festival.

“In response to the White House, who asked me to perform for Pride,” Roan said. “We want liberty, justice, and freedom for all. When you do that, that’s when I’ll come.”

The rebuffed request was confirmed by Roan’s representatives to Variety. Later in her performance, Chappell Roan, the stage persona of 26-year-old Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, continued to explain why she’d turned down the offer.

“I am in drag of the biggest queen of all,” announced the singer, who appeared dressed as the Statue of Liberty, which stood a little over a mile away  across the New York harbor. “But in case you had forgotten what’s etched on my pretty little toes: ‘Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.’

“That means freedom and trans rights. That means freedom and women’s rights. It especially means freedom for all people in oppressed—” she paused, placing her hand over her mouth, appearing to tear up. “It especially means freedom for all oppressed people in occupied territories,” which many in the audience understood to be a reference to Israel’s deadly military campaign in Gaza and ongoing occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem. 

The crowd erupted into cheers, and the singer quickly pivoted to her performance. “Thank you,” she shouted. “We’re gonna do ‘Hot to Go’!”

Over the weekend, Israel Defense Forces killed 274 people in Nuseirat as part of an extraction effort that saved four hostages, while reportedly killing three others. More than 37,000 people in Gaza were killed in the last eight months.

Donald Trump appears to have an unconventional idea about how to handle the Russia-Ukraine conflict—and his allies don’t seem to have a good explanation for it.

When pressed for details on Sunday, Trump vice presidential hopeful Senator Tom Cotton explained to Fox News that Trump would likely allow Russia to claim parts of Ukraine.

“There are reports that what President Trump plans to do to end that conflict is to potentially push Ukraine to give up Crimea, parts of Donbas,” host Shannon Bream said. “If that is the plan, do you agree with that strategy? And would that be rewarding [Vladimir] Putin in order to wrap this thing up in the way that he intended to start it—and take some of that territory? Is that just giving him what he wanted?”

Such a plan would effectively reverse President Joe Biden’s policy and lose any wins that Ukraine has had in its year-and-a-half war against its superpower neighbor. But despite the plan’s shocking intentions, Cotton still didn’t deny its details.

“President Trump and his campaign have said that any reports of plans like that are not authorized, and they’re not coming from the president himself,” Cotton said. “Furthermore, President Trump has said that he strongly supports Ukraine’s strength and survival. He had a strong relationship when he was in office with President Zelenskiy.”

Cotton seemed to conveniently forget that Trump’s relationship with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy consisted mainly of withholding military aid to try to get the Eastern European nation to dig up dirt on Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election. Trump was impeached (the first time) for his demand.

Trump’s new whole plan is awfully similar to an idea previously pitched by biotech investor Vivek Ramaswamy. In August, the former GOP presidential candidate told CNN that the only way to break up the Russia-China alliance would be to give the Slavic nation what it wants. But even then, the plan was pitched on the false premise that the U.S. has any say in how a foreign nation divvied up its land.

During a meeting with the Ukrainian leader on Friday, Biden actually apologized for the delayed aid package, blaming its late arrival on some contentious conservative members of Congress—and possibly on Cotton, who was one of 29 Republicans to vote against the $95.3 billion foreign aid package in February. But the Arkansas lawmaker couldn’t square that when asked about it by Bream.

“Well, Shannon, he should only be pointing the finger at himself,” Cotton said of Biden. “For more than two years, Joe Biden pussyfooted around and didn’t give Ukraine the weapons it needed to defend itself.”

Donald Trump went nuts over the weekend over an ad from the Joe Biden campaign highlighting Trump allegedly calling dead soldiers “suckers and losers.”

The ad was posted on Friday afternoon with the tagline “Donald Trump doesn’t know a damn thing about service to his country.”

At a Las Vegas rally on Sunday, the convicted felon and former president once again denied making the comments, as he did when The Atlantic first reported on them in 2020.

“[Biden] said I stood over graves of soldiers and I said: ‘These people are suckers and losers,’ the dead soldiers from World War I,’’ Trump said Sunday. He claimed it was all “made up” and that the Biden campaign knew it was “phony” but still “took an ad using it—these are sick people.”

“Unless you’re a psycho or a crazy person or a very stupid person, who would say that, anyway?” Trump said at the rally. “I don’t like mentioning it. But for me to say ‘suckers and losers’ about people that died in World War I in front of military people? It’s not a possibility you could say a thing like that.”

On Sunday evening, Trump continued to vent on Truth Social, posting twice about his alleged comments and attacking their source, his former chief of staff John Kelly.

In October, Kelly confirmed that Trump made the comments in 2018, refusing to visit the graves of American soldiers buried near Paris because the cemetery is “filled with losers.”

Trump is “a person that has no idea what America stands for and has no idea what America is all about.… A person that has nothing but contempt for our democratic institutions, our Constitution, and the rule of law,” Kelly said. “There is nothing more that can be said.”

Representative Eric Swalwell reprised his pitch-perfect burn for the cultish fervor of MAGA Republicans after Donald Trump and his disciples demonstrated their demented brand of devotion on Sunday.

Last week, Swalwell made waves on the internet for a viral speech declaring that Republicans’ steadfast loyalty to Trump, despite his obvious faultiness and recent guilty verdict, reminded him of the unwavering followers in a cult.

After Sunday’s sweltering rally, Swalwell resurrected his gag, after Trump and his disciples doubled down on their crazy.

“Thank God we’re here in Sunset Park to worship and bring back the greatest president we’ve ever known in our generation!” cried Nevada Republican Party Chair Michael McDonald, beneath the blazing sun that sent several so-called parishioners to the hospital.

McDonald’s suggestion that Trump supporters should “worship” the presumptive Republican nominee seemed particularly unhinged, especially in the context of what Trump said later that day during one of his many rambling rants.

“Easier to vote for Biden? I don’t think so! It would be suicide before Biden, right?” Trump asked the crowd.

Swalwell seized on the unhinged comments, which evoked the taste-memory of Kool-Aid. He posted the newest installment of his viral rant on X, formerly Twitter, and captioned it, “You might be in a cult if …”

Incredibly enough, Swalwell’s video didn’t even contain all of the insane pseudoreligious comments from even that one rally.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene proudly touted a particularly blasphemous comparison. “The Democrats and the fake news media want to constantly talk about, ‘Oh, President Trump is a convicted felon,’” the Georgia Republican griped. “Well, you wanna know something? The man that I worship is also a convicted felon. And he was murdered on a Roman cross.”

Greene’s comment suggests she lacks an understanding of the Bible, or Trump, or hey, maybe even both. As the poster child for Trump’s cult, it should surprise no one that she has actually already compared Trump to Jesus after he was arrested last year.