Republican Sen. David McCormick defended Donald Trump’s latest controversial moves in a rare interview, including the president’s $230 million request for the Justice Department to pay his legal bills, the demolition of the White House’s East Wing, and his party’s handling of the government shutdown.
He also compared Democrats to “terrorists” in the tense stalemate over reopening the government — though he later walked that back.
But the Pennsylvania freshman, who won his seat last fall by about 15,000 votes, sings a different tune when it comes to his one-time political rival Sen. John Fetterman.
“My position has been from Day 1 — open up the government. That’s where Sen. Fetterman, my counterpart, Democratic senator from Pennsylvania, has been,” McCormick told CNN’s Manu Raju in a wide-ranging interview for “Inside Politics Sunday,” adding that he would take the same tack if he were a member of the minority party.
Fetterman has now voted 12 times with Republicans on a short-term bill to extend current government funding levels through November 21.
“He’s had the courage to stand up for what he believes in. We have found common ground, and when we find it, we work together,” McCormick said of Fetterman, whom he calls “an extraordinary partner.”
He dodged repeatedly when asked whether he thinks Fetterman, who hasn’t yet said he’ll run for a second term in three years, should be reelected.
“I trust him. Can’t always say that about people in Washington these days. I trust John Fetterman to do what he thinks is right and what he thinks is right for Pennsylvania,” he said.
McCormick emphasized that Fetterman, who insists he’ll remain a Democrat despite mounting disagreements with his caucus, is “not a conservative by any stretch” and said he hasn’t urged him to change parties.
“What we agree on is that where we can find common ground, we’re going to work together for Pennsylvania. And that’s, unfortunately, more rare these days than it should be,” he lamented.
He made clear he’s less interested in finding common ground right now with most of Fetterman’s fellow Democrats, who are demanding assurances that Republicans will work with them to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies in exchange for their votes to reopen the government.
“You can’t negotiate with a terrorist,” he said, calling the minority party’s asks “extremely unreasonable.”
“You can have any negotiation, discussion you want about extending health care benefits, but you can’t start with you’re going to shut down the government to get them,” he continued, aligning himself with the stance of Senate GOP leaders and Trump administration officials who have said they won’t talk to Democrats until the shutdown ends.
Pressed on his choice of the word “terrorist” to describe some of his Senate colleagues, McCormick responded that he thinks Democrats are “irresponsibly imposing pain on the American people” and “holding (essential government services) hostage to try to get a political win.”
“That’s just unacceptable,” he asserted, later adding, “we can have a discussion about health care, benefits and anything else, but we can’t do it with a gun at our head.”
After the interview, McCormick told Raju that he meant to refer to Democrats as “hostage takers” — not terrorists.
While Republicans show no signs of caving as the shutdown is almost certain to stretch into a fifth week, McCormick is among the GOP lawmakers who Democrats hope will be pressured to the negotiating table as their constituents begin to enroll in another year of health insurance with drastically higher premiums.
He called former President Barack Obama’s signature health care law a “failure” and argued that the purpose of the enhanced tax credits was to help “overcome” the ACA’s shortcomings.
Still, McCormick worries about the “implications” for many working Pennsylvanians, who could face 82% higher premiums, according to state estimates.
“A lot of people in Pennsylvania live paycheck to paycheck, and if their premiums go up dramatically, that’s going to be a big deal,” he said.
Asked whether he’d be in favor of extending ACA subsidies for another year, McCormick answered, “I certainly support having that conversation, particularly as it affects working families.”
The fight in Congress comes ahead of next year’s midterm battle, when Democrats hope to mobilize voters around the issue of health care affordability.
McCormick, who unseated a Democratic incumbent and won one of the closest Senate races in the country last year, said he’s not concerned that Republicans’ position in this shutdown standoff might come back to hurt them in 2026.
“Of course” his party is worried about health care costs, McCormick said, claiming that while Republicans are “focused” on addressing the issue, the political “headline” that voters will look to is the “remarkable delivery” of Trump’s 2024 campaign promises.
McCormick also says he isn’t worried about some of the more controversial headlines generated by the president.
He defends Trump where a few of his fellow Republicans express reservations and lauds him for sticking to campaign commitments that won his political ally the state of Pennsylvania — and the White House — by a larger margin than McCormick won to scoop up his seat.
He noted Trump was a private citizen when he requested $230 million from the Justice Department as compensation for investigations into him, though those asks are still on the table and could ultimately result in the president receiving millions in taxpayer dollars.
Pressed on the fact that Trump could just drop the request, McCormick responded, “the president said that whatever happens, he won’t benefit from it personally, so I’d say let it go through the court system.”
It is however possible that the Justice Department, which Trump ultimately oversees as president, could agree to a monetary settlement before the issue makes it to a court.
Though most of McCormick’s Republican colleagues have dodged on the subject, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who isn’t running for reelection, bemoaned last week that news of a potential payment to Trump at the expense of taxpayers looks “horrible” amid a weekslong government shutdown.
And McCormick also isn’t concerned about the optics of Trump’s demolition of the White House’s East Wing to build a massive ballroom.
“The project was underway, and it’s not being paid by taxpayer dollars,” he said, calling the multimillion dollar project funded by wealthy donors and major companies “small ball and tiny” compared with the president’s efforts to make peace in war-torn Gaza and Ukraine.
As the president continues to ramp up his wielding of executive power, often with very little input from Congress, McCormick rejects the premise that Trump is acting “outside the boundaries” of his office.
The former Army captain said while he would like to be “more updated” on the series of recent US military strikes on alleged South American drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean, he believes Trump is being “consistent” in what he told voters he would do to take on the cartels.
“If it was a president I didn’t trust, I’d want to know a lot more. But what he’s doing is consistent with the promises he made,” McCormick said.
CNN’s Jenna Monnin contributed to this report.
