‘Our country hangs in the balance’: John Fetterman infuriates MAGA with dual cabinet downvotes

Democratic Senator John Fetterman is making enemies of MAGA Republicans this week, as he shoves past their bullish support of Donald Trump’s brainless Cabinet picks to cast two “no” votes.

Channeling an impeccable John McCain energy, Fetterman declined to vote “yes” on two of Trump’s Cabinet selections. We’d all be a fair bit happier if he’d voted against every single one of them, given the rampant illegality of almost every person at Trump’s side, but I suppose we’ll take what we can get. Which, in this case, is the dual downvotes for Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Director of National Intelligence nominee Tulsi Gabbard.

The motivation for any vote against RFK Jr. is blatantly obvious to anyone with a brain, eyes, or the ability to comprehend information, and yet somehow this man still has a very good shot at confirmation. He’s got broad support among Republicans, who are willfully ignoring his history of contradiction, brazen lies, and spreading misinformation in their quest to please Daddy Trump.

Kennedy’s brain was butchered long before the worm moved in, and it’s only decayed more in the time since the whale-beheading, bear-eating, vaccine-denying maniac slid his sticky fingers into politics. Once, he was an actually respectable human — he fought for human rights, indigenous lands, and minority communities — but something shifted in him over the years.

Now Kennedy is a dangerous man, and his views on health in particular could set America back massively. Yes, we should be more strict about what goes into our food, but no, raw milk is not the solution. There’s a middle ground, and Kennedy has never stepped foot on it — something Fetterman clearly understands.

Then there’s Gabbard, a former Democrat-turned-Republican who only recently hopped on the Trump Train. She officially joined the Republican party in 2024, and in the months since, she’s been carefully cozying up to Trump. At least she’s got experience in her field — unlike so many Trump nominees — but Gabbard’s seen plenty of pushback of her own. She’s been accused of cozying up to Russia and Syria, and some of her Democratic opposition even fear she’s been compromised by Vladimir Putin’s government.

They’re far from the only questionable nominees on Trump’s shortlist, but they are the pair Fetterman chose to push back on over the last few weeks of confirmation hearings. In a post to social media, the Senator announced that “after considering what’s at stake, I have voted against moving forward to the confirmation of Ms. Gabbard and Mr. Kennedy, and will be voting NO on their confirmations.”

He was also a “hard no” on freshly-confirmed White House Budget Director Russell Vought, but apparently the Boys villain incarnate’s ties to Project 2025 weren’t enough to encourage other Senators to agree. As a result, Vought is set to step into a powerful new position, despite Fetterman’s efforts.

Unfortunately for Fetterman and the country as a whole, chances are good that the same will happen with Gabbard and RFK Jr. There’s simply too much support for Trump and his rights-robbing aims, and a few determined Democrats won’t be enough to stop the will of the Congressional majority.