This will go down as one of Senator Fetterman’s greatest media appearances.
For three straight minutes, he hammered the left-wing media machine for spinning the Iran conflict — and when Kaitlan Collins tried to cut him off, he called her out right to her face: “You don’t have to cut me off here!”
FETTERMAN: “And I would remind everybody listening right now, the United States never, EVER targets civilians.” “Iran does, you know, and including their own citizens. And they massacred that 35,000 of them just a couple of weeks ago.”
[Collins tried to interrupt]
FETTERMAN: “And the left…please! Please!” “The left media is much more angry, you know, about or talking about this hospital. And it is a tragedy. But they didn’t seem to be as concerned about the Iranians massacring tens of thousands of their young people just a couple of weeks ago, too.”
“So we agree on many parts of it, but we both disagree…I mean, we all disagree that it’s I think it’s a good thing. And every single other Democrat in the caucus caused it all kinds of in negative terms.”
Collins seemed shocked. She took a moment to gather her thoughts.
COLLINS: “Uh…we did cover the protests in Iran extensively here at CNN.”“Obviously they said a lot about how internally people felt about the regime. But just to—”
FETTERMAN: “Well, I don’t watch so I don’t know, but I’m talking about other left media.”
COLLINS: “I understand…I just wanted to make that clear to…to…our viewers that we did cover that.”“But just to be clear, you do believe if the United States was responsible, that the Pentagon should acknowledge that they accidentally hit a girl’s school?”
FETTERMAN: “Yeah, I’ve said that.” “I said it seems that they’ve already acknowledging all those things. I think largely that letter, it was rendered moot at this point after what’s already come out.” “And I don’t know what your network talked about. But what I’m saying is that, you know, whether like it’s the New York Times, they’re making it more and more trying to convince America that this, this has been a disaster or things are out of control.”“And that’s just categorically not true on that.”
COLLINS: “I just think it deserves coverage, obviously given the number of children who were killed as a result of it, it obviously matters what happened there.”“We’ll see what the Pentagon investigation says.”Collins immediately tried to end the segment.
COLLINS: “Senator John Fetterman, I appreciate your time tonight. Thank you for joining us. As always here.”
FETTERMAN: “Oh, now, you don’t have to cut me off here.”[Fetterman chuckles]He forced Collins to let him continue his message. The frustrated look on her face told the whole story.
COLLINS: “Go ahead Senator, we’re not cutting you off.”
FETTERMAN: “Well, you you said something that it’s like it’s appropriate to to cover it.”“It is appropriate to cover it. You know, it’s a tragedy. Absolutely. You know and now if we’re on that, it’s entirely appropriate for you to apologize.”“If you’re implying that I don’t think it’s wrong to cover it, that’s just not true.”“Yes it’s being covered. I just want to clarify that it just seemed like a, like a short shut off there to imply that I didn’t want to carry that or I think it’s entirely appropriate to talk about it.”
COLLINS: “Yeah. I’m not implying that. I just wanted to clarify why we’re covering it. For everyone who’s watching. Senator, thank you, I do always appreciate hearing your thoughts.”
FETTERMAN: [Annoyed tone] “Yeah…thank you...”And…scene.