John Fetterman says it's 'incredibly unhelpful' to boot Trump from ballots via the 14th amendment: 'All it does is just make him more popular and strong'

• Two states have booted Trump from their ballots via the 14th amendment.
• The Supreme Court could soon rule on the matter, and it's generating outrage on the right.
• Sen. John Fetterman argues that it's "incredibly unhelpful" and will only help Trump.

Sen. John Fetterman says that attempts to remove former President Donald Trump from ballots ahead of the 2024 election are only likely to backfire.

"I just want to just go on the record to say how incredibly unhelpful it is to have other states removing him from the ballot," Fetterman told The Daily Beast this week. "All of that is a gift to Trump. And all it does is just make him more popular and strong. That's just going to energize his base—it's just not helpful."

"You know, he just absorbs this kind of energy," Fetterman said of Trump. "The only way that we're going to put him away is going to be in an election."

In recent weeks, both Colorado and Maine have moved to block Trump from appearing on ballots in their states, citing Section 3 of the 14th Amendment to the US Constitution.

That provision, drafted after the Civil War, bars public officials from serving if they've "engaged in insurrection or rebellion."

Last year, a local official in New Mexico who had taken part in the January 6 insurrection was successfully booted from office under the provision — the first time that had happened since 1869.

The recent decisions by Colorado and Maine — as well as similar potential moves by other states — could soon be settled by the Supreme Court.

Fetterman isn't the first prominent Democrat to argue against the tactic: California Gov. Gavin Newsom recently rejected attempts to do the same in his state.

"There is no doubt that Donald Trump is a threat to our liberties and even to our democracy," Newsom said in a recent statement. "In California, we defeat candidates at the polls. Everything else is a political distraction."

But Fetterman is speaking out against the decision at a time when most other congressional Democrats have stayed quiet — or defended the decision, like Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, a former constitutional law professor.

"If you think about it, of all of the forms of disqualification that we have, the one that disqualifies people for engaging in insurrection is the most democratic because it's the one where people choose themselves to be disqualified," Raskin said during a recent CNN interview.