MAGA Celebrates After Fetterman’s Surprise Video at GOP Convention

Republicans are celebrating Democratic Senator John Fetterman making a cameo at the midterm GOP convention Wednesday night.

Fetterman praised President Trump, as well as fellow Pennsylvania Senator Dave McCormick, a Republican, in a video in which he called himself a “commonsense Democrat.”

“I’m always going to stand with America. I’m always going to reject the extremes and socialism and the anti-American way of life. Dave McCormick is the kind of senator that gets the job done, and he’s going to fight for Pennsylvania. I’m proud to count him as my friend,” Fetterman said.

Taking the stage in Dallas right after the video, McCormick told the convention crowd, “How great is John Fetterman, right?

“Thank you Senator Fetterman for your friendship, thank you for your courage and thank you for all you do for Pennsylvania,” McCormick said.

Personalities across MAGA and the right wing quickly began rejoicing. White House X account Rapid Response 47 immediately posted the video with the caption “Based John Fetterman.”

Conservative commentator Bill O’Reilly said on NewsNation that Fetterman “is going to be a Republican.”

“He will. He’s going to be a Republican,” O’Reilly told the network’s Chris Cuomo and sports commentator Stephen A. Smith, adding that Fetterman spoke at McCormick’s behest because Trump’s steel tariffs have “injected a lot of money and hope into” Pennsylvania’s steel industry.

“So, McCormick asked Fetterman, ‘Hey, we owe it to the folks for you to get out there and say that,’ which Fetterman did,” O’Reilly told Cuomo and Smith.

Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson called Fetterman “an example of common sense” on Fox News.

“He does not side with the radical left. It’s the insurgent left. It’s taken over that party. We make the case all the time. This is not your father’s Democratic Party!” Johnson told Laura Ingraham.

Far-right commentator Laura Loomer, a proud Islamophobe, told the British newspaper The Telegraph that if Fetterman joined the Republican Party, she would “absolutely” welcome him.

“He is the only Democrat outside of [Florida Representative] Jared Moskowitz right now who is actually really calling out this Islamic Communist takeover of the party,” Loomer said.

Fetterman voted with Republicans in the Senate to end last year’s government shutdown, supported multiple Trump appointees, and opposed efforts to end the war in Iran. He has taken a hard-line stance in support of Israel, fully supporting its war on Gaza and refusing to acknowledge any war crimes. Still, he refuses to commit to switching parties, despite massive criticism from Democrats and reports that his right turn is coming at the expense of his constituents.

“I’m a lifelong Democrat who votes overwhelmingly with my party—and should the Senate flip in November, I will still be the fifty-first vote that I ran on,” Fetterman said in a statement Wednesday.

The Supreme Court has blocked a federal judge’s decision about Missouri’s voting map, further throwing the state’s election into chaos.

The nation’s highest judiciary issued an order in the pending case Thursday, directing the state to rely on the original congressional maps that were drawn after the 2020 census during the upcoming midterm cycle, rather than the 2025 map created at Donald Trump’s behest, which would have granted Republicans an extra seat in the House.

It’s possible that this won’t be the Supreme Court’s final say on the matter, however. The legal memo noted that the stay will remain in place unless the case (People Not Politicians v. Onder) receives a final ruling, either by being elevated to the court’s bench or by being referred back to a lower court.

The drama began last summer, when Trump ordered several Republican-led states to redraw their congressional maps in a brazen attempt to create a GOP advantage in Washington.

Congressional maps are typically redrawn every 10 years, in accordance with the census cycle, allowing states to more accurately reflect changing local populations and meet their respective political needs. Yet Trump’s order arrived in the middle of the decade, raising alarms that the nationwide effort was an attempt to undermine U.S. democracy.

Republicans wasted no time implementing the directive in Missouri, where they shaved portions off a Democratic stronghold encompassing Kansas City, endangering Representative Emanuel Cleaver’s seat. The new map offered Republicans a 7–1 advantage, a one-seat gain over their previous 6–2 delegation.

A group called People Not Politicians collected more than 300,000 signatures in opposition to the new map—more than double the amount required—to force a statewide referendum on the matter, which is due to take place on November 3 on the statewide ballot.

Regardless, Missouri pushed ahead, opting to use the new maps during its August 4 primary. But this week, things got especially messy.

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that the state should use the new maps during the November election, in light of the primary using the new districts. But that judge’s decision was in direct conflict with an order from Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, who had decided moments earlier that another legal decision on the matter—the Missouri Supreme Court overturning the new map—should stand. In doing so, Kavanaugh effectively decided that Missouri should use its original maps, rather than the new one drafted last year.

The Supreme Court’s Thursday decision raises more questions about how the midterm election will be carried out, given how primary votes were conducted.

This story has been updated.

“Trump-a-palooza” is off to a disastrous start.

President Donald Trump promised that the Republican Party’s midterm convention would be “sold out” Wednesday—but hours into the opening day, there were still hundreds of empty seats at the American Airlines Center outside of Dallas.

“This place is packed. And not only is this packed, it’s a big arena, not only is this packed, but you have an equal number of people standing outside,” Trump told the arena.

Trump continued to self-consciously ramble about the size of his audience throughout his address.

“This is our big room. This place is packed,” Trump said. “Do you think the fake news, you know what they’re gonna do? The fake news will go around and see that man up there? He’s leaving for the bathroom. He’ll be back in two minutes. Up in the—they’ll take a picture of his seat while he’s gone. And they’ll say, ‘Trump did not fill up the arena. The arena was not filled.’”

An hour later, Trump returned to the subject. “They’ll have a reporter say, ‘Trump lost his audience. He didn’t enjoy it up there.’ I do. I’m having a lot of fun. You know why? Cause everybody loves me, and I love everybody,” Trump said.

Shortly before Trump was scheduled to give his keynote address, House Speaker Mike Johnson told NewsMax’s Finnerty that the arena was full—even as the camera panned over dozens of empty seats.

“Yeah, it’s full. I’m looking around, I think every seat up to the rafters are full,” Johnson said.

PBS News’s Liz Landers posted a video on X of the convention “kicking off” earlier that evening. The video showed that most of the 20,000-seat basketball arena was still empty, with just a few hundred attendees sitting on the floor and lower levels.

“Capacity-wise they could have held this in a high school gym,” former Democratic staffer Aaron Fritschner wrote on X.

Later, another video posted by a Minnesota state Republican representative showed that the entire upper deck of the convention center was empty. Attendees witnessed one convention organizer running through the halls encouraging people to sit in the still-empty sections, The Daily Beast reported.

It might’ve been that long waits in the hot Texas sun that attendees were subjected to kept people away.

Alec Shears, a conservative pundit, described the outdoor check-in. “3 people have needed medical attention so far. Several have already gone home,” he wrote on X.

The Texas Observer’s Steven Monacelli observed that there was a heat advisory in Dallas Fort Worth. “I may have overestimated my progress through the line. I’m approaching hour two of waiting in what feels like 100+ heat and I still have not gotten a credential for the GOP midterm gathering in Dallas. One ambulance has already come and gone,” he wrote on X.

The current conflict against Iran could become another forever war.

White House officials have privately told Donald Trump that the war could last through the end of his term—a stark about-face from the president’s repetitive public messaging on the matter, which has involved tireless promises since February that the war’s end is immediately forthcoming.

Some of Trump’s closest advisers—including Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio—have discussed the conflict’s potentially extended timeline with the president, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. The White House is exploring the possibility that Tehran could continue to resist U.S. pressure, which insiders told the Journal could push the war even beyond Inauguration Day 2029.

Despite the dire reality of the closed-door conversations, Trump has invariably echoed his administration’s forecast for the war to the American public. Speaking with reporters on Wednesday, Trump pledged that the conflict will end “immediately” after the midterm elections in November “because they can’t hold out any longer.”

That drawn-out timeline could spell disaster for American defenses, which have already reached a “beyond critical” missile shortage.

The Iran war has done nothing good for America in the six months since it began. The conflict has so far killed at least 18 U.S. service members and wounded more than 750 others. It has also killed more than 3,500 people in Iran and injured tens of thousands of locals, according to data published by Al Jazeera.

The conflict has also taken an enormous toll on daily life in the U.S., inflaming the cost of practically everything as shipping companies contend with rising oil costs. As a result, Trump’s approval rating has plummeted, with trust and loyalty rattled even amongst his base, who are reportedly losing patience with the unyielding violence.

Even conservatives are skeptical about President Trump’s massive Hail Mary to give everyone $5,000 if Republicans win the midterms.

“Only I can make this promise to you.… If the Republicans win the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, both of them … I will issue a dividend to every adult citizen in the United States of America for $5,000,” Trump said Wednesday night at the GOP midterm convention. “Very much like a successful company will do a cash distribution to its shareholders, or like last year when I gave our great members of the military $1,776, remember?”   

But not even Fox News was buying it. 

“We should note though, it is not the first time he has promised a cash payment like this,” the network clarified shortly after Trump’s speech. “He promised Americans $2,000 rebates during his tariff policy when that was enacted, but after court challenges to the tariffs themselves, those $2,000 checks so far have not materialized.” 

Fox hosts laid these concerns at the feet of Vice President JD Vance. 

“You do the quick math, that’s about $1.3 trillion,” Brett Baier told Vance. “I can hear the critics’ heads exploding. They’re saying out loud, I guarantee you: ‘The president is bribing voters to vote for Republicans to take over the House. And then he’s bankrupting the country because the deficit debt is huge, and inflation would come back if this comes into play.’ So how do you answer those criticisms?”

“What the president’s talking about is fundamentally a dividend for American workers. We’re taking in an extraordinary amount of revenue because the president of the United States is actually standing up to both foreign companies, but also foreign countries who’ve been taking advantage of America’s workers for pretty much my entire life,” Vance said, referring to tariffs.

In reality, the revenue brought in by Trump’s tariffs, under $500 billion, would not cover a $5,000 check for every American, which would cost $1.2 trillion. 

It’s obvious at this point that Trump’s first inclination when his back is against the wall is to dangle money in front of the masses. He’s promised cash payments multiple times, including $2,000 stimulus checks for the “tariff dividend,” a $5,000 stimulus check for the bygone “DOGE dividend,” and $1,000 checks for the Affordable Care Act. None of those ever materialized. 

Republicans, by the way, already control Congress. If Trump wanted to make this a reality, he could have by now.