Democrat Senator breaks ranks to defend Donald Trump from his own party
The Democrat Party is bleeding support. Even their own are turning on them.
Now a Democrat Senator broke ranks to defend Donald Trump from his own party.
Fetterman Breaks Party Lines, Backs White House Ballroom After Security Nightmare
Pennsylvania’s Senator John Fetterman has never been shy about crossing the aisle when he thinks his party is wrong. After Saturday’s alarming security breach at the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner, Fetterman did it again — and this time, the stakes could not have been higher.
Cole Allen, a 31-year-old California man, managed to breach multiple layers of Secret Service security at the Washington Hilton and was stopped before he could open fire in a room packed with the President, Vice President, Cabinet officials, and senior administration staff. It was, by any honest reckoning, a near-catastrophe for the American chain of command.
Fetterman, who was present at the dinner, took to X with a message that cut through the usual partisan noise: “After witnessing last night,” he urged fellow Americans to “drop the TDS [Trump derangement syndrome] and build the White House ballroom.”
The senator elaborated without equivocation: “We were there front and center. That venue wasn’t built to accommodate an event with the line of succession for the U.S. government.”
The Numbers Tell the Story
The sheer concentration of leadership in that hotel ballroom staggers the imagination. Eight of nine officials in the presidential line of succession were present under the same roof at a venue that, by all accounts, was never designed to provide the security befitting such an occasion. The $400 million privately funded White House ballroom project — currently mired in a legal challenge by the National Trust for Historic Preservation — would provide a hardened, purpose-built facility for exactly these events.
The Justice Department made that case forcefully in a Sunday letter to opposing counsel, shared by acting Attorney General Todd Blanche: “[Y]our lawsuit puts the lives of the president, his family, and his staff at grave risk.”
Assistant Attorney General Brett Shumate minced no words: “Enough is enough. Your client should voluntarily dismiss this frivolous lawsuit today in light of last night’s assassination attempt on President Trump.”
He continued: “As history proves, that venue is demonstrably unsafe for the President of the United States because its size presents extraordinary security challenges for the Secret Service. [Saturday’s] assassination attempt on President Trump proves, yet again, that the White House ballroom is essential for the safety and security of the President, his family, his cabinet, and his staff.”
Security Failures Cannot Be Papered Over
Conservative influencer Raquel Debono, who attended the dinner, offered a grounding perspective: “No ballroom no matter how grand, matters if we can’t keep people safe first.” She added, with obvious frustration: “Everyone’s debating architecture while a shooter got into what should have been the most heavily secured event in America — it’s a ridiculous distraction. The security failures are the story. It was too easy to get in.”
Debono had left early — before the shots were fired — noting that their bags were never checked and that attendees were “shoved through doors.” Her account should alarm every American who believes the President deserves adequate protection.
President Trump, speaking on Fox News Sunday, drove the point home plainly: “It’s really what you need. You can’t have a thousand [hotel] rooms or whatever it is, I mean, it’s a very big hotel, on top of the ballroom. And people come down the elevator, and they’re right next to the ballroom.”
By Monday, Fetterman acknowledged on CNN that Saturday had changed his thinking: “I never really had a strong opinion on the ballroom to be honest, but this clearly demonstrated [the need].” He reflected on how close the nation came to catastrophe: “I just walked away from that still kind of stunned how lucky we were that no one was seriously hurt. And when we have the significant majority of our leadership in a very small, clustered area, it could have been much more catastrophic for our nation that day.”
Whatever one thinks of Senator Fetterman’s politics, on this issue he is right. It is long past time to stop playing games with presidential security.
