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President-elect Donald Trump is determined to Make America Great Again, and his willingness to extend a hand across the aisle is indisputable.
Likely to the dismay of many hard-line Democrats who refuse to give concessions to their Republican colleagues, Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman has accepted Trump’s invitation to meet at his home in Mar-a-Lago.
When asked to verify reporting from their sources, Fetterman told CBS News, “That is the plan. Yes, we are going to have a conversation.”
Fetterman will be the first sitting Democratic U.S. senator to meet with Trump at his home since the election.
The freshman senator told the outlet that one reason he agreed to meet with Trump was because “he’s the president, or he will be officially.”
“I think it’s pretty reasonable that if the president would like to have a conversation — or invite someone to have a conversation — to have it. And no one is my gatekeeper.” Fetterman said.
Fetterman has met with various Trump appointees, including Department of Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, former House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik, R-N.Y., and former U.S. Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wisc., Trump’s nominee for secretary of the Department of Transportation.
Fetterman briefly conversed with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary nominee, when he came to the Capitol to meet with lawmakers on December 18.
Fetterman was also the first Democratic senator to sponsor the Laken Riley Act, which would require detention of non-citizens charged or convicted of burglary, larceny, theft, or shoplifting. On Thursday, the Senate advanced the bill for debate with an 84-9 vote.
Recognizing the importance of stopping illegal migration to Americans, Fetterman told Fox News “I think if we can’t — there [are] 47 of us in the Senate, and if we can’t pull up with seven votes, if we can’t — at least 7 out of 47, and if we can’t, then that’s the reason why we lost. That’s one of them, that’s one of [the reasons] why we lost, in part.”
Fetterman, who often speaks candidly to the press about his intentions, told reporters, “I demand that I need to be made pope of Greenland,” when asked what he hoped to get out of the meeting.
Additionally, he made clear to the press, “I am not the senator for just Democrats in Pennsylvania. I’m everyone’s senator in Pennsylvania.”