Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick
Emboldened by his successful efforts to oust multiple GOP lawmakers who defied his orders, President Donald Trump now has a new Republican target—and it may be his dumbest yet.
On Wednesday, Trump turned his ire to Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick, threatening to go after the Pennsylvania Republican who has come out against Trump’s corrupt slush fund to give reparations to traitorous rioters who attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
Trump’s attacks came after Fitzpatrick’s fiancee, Fox News reporter Jacqui Heinrich, tried to ask Trump a question about Israel that he apparently didn’t like.
“Her husband votes against me all the time,” Trump replied to Heinrich, though Heinrich and Fitzpatrick are not yet married. “I don’t know what’s with him. You better ask him what’s with him. Her husband—she’s married to a certain congressman. He likes voting against Trump. You know what happens with that? It doesn’t work out well.”Fitzpatrick is one of just three House Republicans who hold districts former Vice President Kamala Harris carried in the 2024 presidential election. Harris won Fitzpatrick’s 1st District seat by less than one percentage point in 2024, while former President Joe Biden carried it by nearly five points four years earlier, according to data from The Downballot.
It’s in districts like these that Republicans need the leeway to deviate from their party’s immensely unpopular leader in order to secure reelection.
Fitzpatrick has marginally done that. He was one of two Republicans who voted against the cruel “One Big Beautiful Bill,” which ripped healthcare away from the poorest Americans in order to make room for tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the rich. And now Fitzpatrick is slamming Trump’s $1.8 billion fund to compensate Jan. 6 insurrectionists.
“A massive discretionary fund, with no oversight or approval from Congress, represents a dangerous backsliding in the transparency of our institutions and our commitment to the American taxpayer,” Fitzpatrick wrote in a letter to acting Attorney General Todd Blanche on Wednesday, demanding answers on questions about where the money is being diverted from and if people convicted of crimes will receive money.
Attribution: APRepublican Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, shown in 2018.That has angered Trump, who demands fealty and loyalty at all costs.If Trump ramps up his attacks on Fitzpatrick, it could keep some Republican voters from backing Fitzpatrick this fall. And that would be devastating in a competitive seat like his, where he not only needs near-universal support from Republicans but also to convince Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents to vote for him. That will be hard when polls show Democrats and independents are chomping at the bit to punish Trump and his party.
Cowardly Republicans, afraid to get on Trump’s bad side and risk their political futures, anonymously slammed Trump’s revenge tour.“It seems like he’s given up on holding the majority and focusing on loyalty in the minority,” an unnamed House Republican told Politico.
The only ones who spoke publicly about the idiocy of Trump’s revenge campaign are those who are not running for reelection and thus have nothing to lose by speaking their minds.
“I believe that there are people in the White House who couldn’t care less about what happens in November,” Republican Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who last summer announced his retirement rather than run for reelection because he said he could not vote his conscience and win a primary at the same time, told Politico. “And that goes to show you how stupid they are, because if they don’t get Republicans reelected, they’re going to create the most miserable two years of this president’s life.”
Tillis may be angry, but I, for one, can’t wait to see Trump squirm when Democrats win the House majority—and possibly even the Senate.
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