WASHINGTON — One month into consistently siding with Republicans on reopening the government, U.S. Sen. John Fetterman took his pitch to Fox News over the weekend — telling Lara Trump that he won't stop engaging with the opposition despite the political repercussions he might face.

The Pennsylvania Democrat called it "absurd" that he would "get grief" for talking with Trump, the president's daughter-in-law and former Republican National Committee leader, who repeatedly praised Fetterman throughout the interview.

"We're just having a conversation," said Fetterman, who has a memoir scheduled to publish next week. "I think that's really important. It's actually even more important now, the kinds of times that we're in right now. We can't ever collectively turn our back to others."

Some of that pushback arrived right on cue. U.S. Brendan Boyle, a Philadelphia Democrat, was among the many who commented on social media.

"Sadly, I'm not surprised," said Boyle, who is considered a potential challenger if Fetterman runs for reelection in 2028.

Fetterman has voted 11 times on Republicans' spending bill to fund the government both before and after it shut down Oct. 1. He's the only Senate Democrat who's crossed party lines to both fund the entire government and consistently vote for other bills — like a measure to pay federal employees who are working during the shutdown — that Republicans have used to pressure Democrats to end the stalemate. He's also said he would support Republicans sidestepping the longtime filibuster rule to pass their plan without any Democratic support.

In the sit-down interview with Trump that aired Saturday, Fetterman echoed the stances he's been vocalizing for weeks. There's no reason whatsoever to shut down the government, he said, even if he agrees with Democrats' position on extending the Affordable Care Act credits that are set to expire.

"I don't care who's behind it. It's always wrong," he said.

Asked about his dinner with President Donald Trump before his inauguration in January, Fetterman called the experience positive, saying the president-elect was "gracious" and "pleasant."

"It's not about bending a knee," Fetterman said. "It's about having a conversation with the president, and I think that's entirely inappropriate."

Still, Fetterman's meeting and his sometimes conciliatory comments about the president since then have invited fierce pushback from some in his party.

Boyle called Fetterman "Trump's favorite Democrat" after the senator said the president deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, which he's been lobbying for, if he ends the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. Conor Lamb, a Fetterman critic and former congressman who represented Beaver and parts of Allegheny counties, said after a similar remark that Fetterman had "just no core principles."

Lara Trump, praising Fetterman in her Fox News interview, said he seemed to be choosing "common sense over blind party loyalty."

The senator said it was easy for him to speak his mind and that he wasn't trying to tell his party how to behave. About a week before his memoir, "Unfettered," was set to publish on Nov. 11, he also referenced his upbringing in his appeal to all types of voters.

"I'm not here to give advice on my party but I try to be an example, be an example of leadership as a Democrat in the most purple part of our country, and that grew up with the other side," Fetterman said. "I never lived in the kind of bubble, and I refuse to believe the very worst things about the other side because I just know that's not true. They are great people."

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