Sens. Katie Britt, R-Ala., and John Fetterman, D-Pa., on Thursday pushed for more legislation to address social media use by children and teenagers in a wide-ranging interview with NBC News.
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The senators warned of social media’s effects on mental health for young people, saying they’ve introduced and co-sponsored bills because they feel a need to put up guardrails for the next generation.
“We did this together, not just as senators, but as parents because we have young children too,” Fetterman said alongside Britt in a sit-down interview with NBC News’ “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker.
Britt said that they approach legislation on the topic “not as Democrats or Republicans, but as concerned parents.”
The senators’ comments came at a Common Ground event, part of an NBC News franchise bringing together leaders with different perspectives to focus on solutions to pressing issues.
In a separate interview at the event in Washington, Reps. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., and Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., said social media has contributed to a rise in toxicity and polarization in Congress.
“I mean just social media, I think changed everything, right? It made it made the job more miserable,” Malliotakis told NBC News’ Ryan Nobles.
She recounted the blowback she received on social media after siding with Democrats and a handful of Republicans to pass a House measure that would reinstate temporary protections for Haitians living in the U.S., essentially rebuking a key component of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy.
Dingell added that “social media is, without fail, one of the worst things that’s happened to this country.”
On the legislative front, Britt and Fetterman discussed teaming up on a pair of bills that would put safeguards in place to protect youth mental health and regulate social media.
Britt introduced the “Stop the Scroll Act” in the Senate last year, a bill that would require social media platforms to implement a mental health warning label. Fetterman co-sponsored the bipartisan bill, along with Democratic Sens. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan and Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Republican Sen. Jon Husted of Ohio.
Fetterman and Britt are also co-sponsors of the “Kids Off Social Media Act,” introduced by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii. That measure would require platforms and children’s schools to implement restrictions on social media usage, including banning kids under 13 years old from creating accounts.
Neither bill has come to the Senate floor for a vote.
Britt said that when thinking about areas where the U.S. wants to lead, “this is one area where we’re not. Other countries have stepped up and stepped up to the plate, and we continue to kind of walk past it, and the time to do something is now.”
Fetterman talked about how social media contributed to his mental health struggles, which he has been open about, following his election to the Senate in 2022.
He said he avoids spending too much time on social media. “When I made the mistake to do that after I won my election, that’s when things really got bad and the depression set in,” he said.
Britt talked about how she visited Fetterman at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center when he sought treatment for depression in 2023.
“John has more courage, and the strength that he showed in that moment is something that I hope everyone in America looks to and learns from,” Britt said. “And for him to trust me enough to be in that space with him, I will always want to be worthy of that trust.”
Britt said she formed a fast friendship with Fetterman when they were first-year senators in 2023, shortly after she won her 2022 election in a ruby red state by more than 35 percentage points and Fetterman won by nearly 5 points in a battleground state.
The senators also discussed their positions on the Iran war, with both saying they would vote to keep the U.S. engaged in the conflict. Fetterman is a Democratic outlier in that respect. He’s consistently the only Democrat to join Republicans in voting against war powers resolutions that would limit Trump’s actions in Iran.
Fetterman, who has bucked his party on other issues like funding the Department of Homeland Security, characterized his stance as “toxic” for a Democrat, but stood by his vote, saying for him “it’s not controversial.”
“You don’t have to agree on every element of Epic Fury, but if we all agree that we could never allow them to acquire a nuclear bomb, I don’t know why we wouldn’t want to empower the president to say no, make sure that Iran can’t become a nuclear power,” Fetterman said.
Fetterman, who has won two statewide elections in Pennsylvania, dodged when asked if he would run for re-election, or perhaps even for president one day, simply saying, “I have a future.”
Fetterman also said that despite finding consensus with Republicans, he was a Democrat.
“As much as I am friends with a lot of Republicans, including my parents, I’m not a Republican,” Fetterman said.
One issue on which the two could not find common ground? Whether they would go to space if given the option.
Both senators expressed strong support for NASA, and Britt said she would make a space sojourn if it were offered.
But Fetterman wasn’t as keen, saying, “I don’t think they have a 4XL in a suit.”
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