Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) cautioned his fellow Democrats for dismissing Elon Musk’s endorsement of former President Donald Trump Sunday, describing the billionaire tech CEO as “brilliant” and influential.

Fetterman joined Chris Stirewalt on this week’s edition of The Hill Sunday to discuss the possibility Democrats could lose the commonwealth of Pennsylvania in three weeks when he warned that writing off Musk as an eccentric non-factor in the election would be unwise.

“It’s the ultimate purple state and all of that,” the senator said of Pennsylvania. “I’ve never said that Pennsylvania is not a blue state. People assumed after 2012 that Pennsylvania is an easy layup, you know, for Dems and I’m like, ‘No, that’s just not that’s that’s not true.'” Fetterman continued:

Trump has now made it so competitive. And I want people to understand how how how popular he is in Pennsylvania. And one thing, you know, honestly, that really does have me concerned more than the polls. The polls is what I expected. But you know, now he is using and Musk is willing to actually show up at these kinds of rallies. And I witnessed that in Butler County a couple of days ago. You know, Musk is – most endorsements don’t count for much in this business. But Musk is incredibly popular and he has an appeal to a demographic that Democrats have been and [struggling] with the care and to some people, they see him as, that’s Tony Stark.

He’s the world’s richest man. And he’s undeniably a brilliant guy. So, I think that that is the situation for Democrats. We would have to acknowledge that. And it seems now, I see that on the front page of The New York Times, now talking about it. So you know that that’s a significant development for me in Pennsylvania that it would think would only make it more competitive here in my state.

Stirewalt then asked, “Who is it that Kamala Harris should bring to counteract that? Is it Joe Biden? Who’s the person that needs to come in for her to counteract the energy with Elon Musk, other than you, obviously?”

Fetterman noted Musk became a punchline after he jumped up and down onstage with Trump at the Butler rally but again stated he believed the Tesla CEO was a force to be reckoned with.

“The Harris campaign has plenty of surrogates and important kinds of endorsements,” Fetterman said. “But I would just say that it’s like, you know, some Democrats just, you know, just mock Musk and that, you know, we can laugh at this. We can goof at it. He’s jumping up and down and those things. Michael, you know, we ignore that is problem. You know, we I think we could do that [at] our peril.”

Watch above via The Hill Sunday.

The post John Fetterman Warns Dems to Take ‘Brilliant’ Elon Musk Seriously: ‘Has an Appeal’ to Voters Dems Struggle With first appeared on Mediaite.

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