Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) said Monday that the Democratic Party mishandled the key issue of border security during President Biden’s tenure by allowing millions of migrants into the country over the past four years, handing Republicans a powerful campaign issue.
Fetterman criticized his party’s approach to immigration and border enforcement during a debate with Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania, held at the Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the United States Senate and aired on Fox Nation.
“That’s a mistake that our party made, and that’s the border,” Fetterman told “Fox News Sunday” anchor Shannon Bream, who moderated the debate that the Orrin G. Hatch Foundation co-hosted.
Fetterman voiced support for the approximately $150 billion included in President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” aimed at securing the U.S.-Mexico border and strengthening immigration enforcement across the country, WAVY-TV reported.
“I absolutely support those kinds of investments to make our border secure,” he said, acknowledging, “I’ve lost some support in my party” for taking that position.
“I thought the border was really important, and our party did not handle the border appropriately. Look at the numbers — 260,000, 300,000 people showing up our borders,” he said, a reference to the daily average of migrants illegally crossing into the U.S. during the Biden regime.
“That’s roughly the size of Pittsburgh. Now, that’s unacceptable, and that’s a national security issue, and that’s chaos,” he added, noting further that the population of the Pennsylvania city was around 303,000 in 2023.
The Congressional Budget Office reported last year that annual net migration during the Biden administration averaged 2.4 million people from 2021 to 2023.“We can’t pretend we can take care of 300,000 people showing up every month,” Fetterman said, per WAVY.
McCormack followed up Fetterman’s comments by noting that the number of migrants entering the U.S. illegally throughout Biden’s administration was roughly equivalent to Pennsylvania’s entire population.
“If you look at the numbers … over the last four years of the Biden administration, we added Pennsylvania, which has 13 million people. We added that in terms of illegal immigrants coming into our country,” he said.
President Donald Trump, meanwhile, ran on implementing a mass deportation policy, which has been frequently thwarted by left-wing groups and Democratic attorneys general suing to block his efforts.
That said, for the first time in nearly two decades of asking, a leading polling firm announced over the weekend that a majority of voters believe the country is moving in the “right direction” under Trump.
According to a Rasmussen Reports survey conducted May 18–22 and released Sunday, 48% of Americans said the U.S. is on the “right track,” while 47% said it is on the “wrong track,” and 5% were “not sure.”
Mark Mitchell of Rasmussen put the numbers in context, saying, “In 20 years, the % of people who say the U.S. is headed in the right direction has never been higher than today.”
The pollster has been conducting its “right track/wrong track” surveys since 2006.
Savvy observers—and critics of the administration—were quick to point out that 48% isn’t technically a majority, which requires at least 50%. A search for “Rasmussen Right Direction” on X shows many users, including Grok, making that exact point.
But on Tuesday, the pollster posted an update: “Rolling average of last night and prior 4-nights” hit the “uncharted territory” of 50%.
Fifty percent say America is headed in the right direction, and that includes 31 percent of self-described Democrats, the pollster noted.
“Never thought I would see it,” Mitchell told the Washington Examiner. “I don’t think the Republican Party understands the gravity of the gift which [President Donald] Trump has given them. Unprecedented presidency.”
While not addressing the poll directly, Trump on Monday offered his own enthusiastic assessment of the nation’s direction, noting on his Truth Social page: “Our Nation is staging one if the greatest and fastest comebacks in history.”