Jesse Watters has declared a savage post-mortem on the GOP’s midterm shellacking.
Watters, 48, reflected on Republicans’ midterm humiliation on The Five, using vivid language to make his point.
“But this was a spanking. I mean, this was a severe spanking...” he said.
“And so maybe the Republicans learned their lesson that if you’re going to make life more expensive for people, you have to be able to sell it, and if you can’t sell it, you’re going to pay for it.”
He called the trade war and the Iran war “noble goals” but said they were “a five-year deal” that is hitting young Americans the hardest.
“If you’re going to make people who are young, struggling, living paycheck to paycheck, have to pay more for stuff and make it harder for them to climb the ladder, it’s not going to go well,” Watters said.
Watters said seniors were now the only group still in Trump’s corner.
“The only people he really won are people over 65, and those are people who have a home, invested in the stock market, and can kind of see the big picture,” he said.
Voters 65 and older made up 36 percent of the electorate and split their House votes 50-50, according to the national Voter Poll conducted by SSRS for ABC, NBC and other outlets.
The young swung hard the other way. White voters under 30, who gave Trump 54 percent in 2024, backed Democrats 62 percent to 34 percent this time, according to early data from The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. Sixty-three percent of young men and 77 percent of young Latinos also voted blue.
“The coalition’s totally collapsed. I mean, you lost whites.” Watters said, shocked. “Whites! You can’t do that if you’re a Republican. Men. Hispanics, big time.And so it’s going to take a while to put the coalition back together.”
Watters pinned the heartland losses on a one-two punch.
“China, in order to pressure Trump in the trade war, stopped buying crops from the farmers, and then you do the Hormuz Strait squeeze and fertilizer and diesel go up, so whoa, they moved blue,” Watters said.
Watters credited the president for being “a legend,” before turning on the billionaires orbiting him.
“I also think a lot of people don’t like watching billionaires spend $70 million on a wedding or pal around at the White House or fly their wives on joyrides in outer space,” he scoffed, referencing Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos, whose 2025 Venice wedding to Lauren Sánchez was estimated to cost tens of millions of dollars, and whose Blue Origin sent Sánchez to space months earlier.
“People don’t like that,” he continued, “So they kind of seized the data centers and held it for ransom, and the base was a little depressed. The Epstein file release was kind of bungled.”
He labeled it a “Ripe environment for a drubbing,” but added, “but these things go up and down.”
Later, in a solo monologue, Watters warned that things might keep getting worse for the president.
“Democrats have him right where they want him–lame duck against big majorities and his base not as loyal–that and about a half dozen Republicans about to announce thier presidential campaigns in a pretty wicked environment.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
