Whoops! Democratic senator admits he screwed up by standing with Trump

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia discovered the perils of aligning himself with President Donald Trump on immigration, and now he’s attempting to undo his mistake.

Ahead of Trump’s joint address to Congress on Tuesday, Warner appeared on Fox Business to explain his reasoning for attending the speech despite other Democrats announcing plans to boycott it.

“I may disagree with the president, but I respect the office of the president. I'm probably not going to be jumping up applauding a lot, but I owe him his due as a president. The president has made great, great progress on border crossings. That's something we ought to celebrate,” Warner said.

Trump’s speech was a mess, which Warner experienced firsthand as he sat in the audience. He watched as Trump lied, used racist language, and smiled as his fellow Republicans suppressed dissenting speech.

But less than 24 hours later, the senator had a notable change of heart.

Appearing on MSNBC, Warner expressed remorse for the statement he made on Fox Business. 

“My words yesterday, they were not great, let me be the first to acknowledge that. My choice of words yesterday, I’d like to take them back,” he said.

Warner’s original statement fed into right-wing rhetoric that falsely attributes a drop in border crossings to Trump’s harsh anti-immigrant stance. But as independent fact checkers have noted, the data on crossings is fluid, so it’s disingenuous to credit the decline to Trump.

Furthermore, in the last months of the Biden administration, border crossings were already on a downward trend—without Trump’s bigoted opposition to immigration.

Warner’s comment and subsequent retraction are another example of the fumbling and confused response from Democrats since Trump won the 2024 election. Democrats have supported Trump’s Cabinet picks, then apologized for voting for them. The party lacks a unified front against his actions, which has led to confusion and discouragement among Democratic voters.

Trump is a racist who, just weeks into his second term, is already losing ground in public opinion polls. He is repeating the same rhetoric and actions that led him to become the only president to lose reelection since 1992.

If Warner and other Democrats want to avoid backlash, they need to stop getting on board a ship that is taking on water.