President Donald Trump isn’t too optimistic about his own party’s odds in the midterms, insiders have revealed.
Trump, 79, has even told aides he doesn’t care about the outcome of the crucial November elections, sources familiar with his comments told The Wall Street Journal as his party scrambles to hold on to its razor-thin majority in Congress.
Those same sources say the president has privately raged against the GOP for, as he sees it, failing to do enough of his bidding. Among other grievances, Trump has vented frustrations over the party’s failure to enact his controversial SAVE Act, a measure that would require proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.
Publicly, Trump has repeatedly complained that the party in power almost always takes a beating in the midterms, seemingly bracing his supporters for a looming disaster that he apparently has confided privately he has no real intention to avoid.
Reached for comment, White House spokesman Kush Desai claimed that Americans will benefit by keeping Republicans in the majority in Congress.
“The message is simple: if Republicans hold Congress and keep delivering on President Trump’s agenda, American families will have more money in their pockets, secure borders, lower prescription drug prices, better economic growth, and energy dominance,” he said. “The American people have a clear choice, doubling down on President Trump’s commonsense agenda or returning to the failures of the Biden administration.”
Trump is expected to hit the campaign trail as many as 30 times before November, according to the report, with the White House hoping to use him to sway voters who might otherwise not vote.
The GOP’s midterm messaging will focus on demonizing Democrats by highlighting Biden-era inflation, higher crime, and clips of mass crossings at the southern border, sources told the outlet, with the goal of preventing the polls from becoming a referendum on Trump.
In January, the White House announced that the president would scale back his international travel to focus on a domestic tour hammering down on Republican messaging.
Earlier this month, Trump tried out a new message during his visit to The Villages in Florida, which is home to the world’s largest retirement community. The president plans to make older voters a focal point since they reliably show up in midterm elections, according to The Journal.
Apart from an unprompted flex of his mental acuity—and a bizarre insinuation that his supporters in the audience couldn’t pass a cognitive test like him—Trump highlighted a provision in his “big, beautiful” bill that would provide tax deductions for seniors.
Trump is also expected to stage a rare midterm convention in Dallas in September, The Journal reported. The event will shine a spotlight on the Republican Party and its candidates as voters are inundated with political ads.
Republicans are gearing up for an uphill climb, with myriad polls showing broad dissatisfaction with Trump’s policies, especially around the fast-rising cost of living. Trump has already set the record for the worst net approval numbers of all time, according to CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten.
“No wonder he has the five worst polls on inflation of all time when it comes to net approval rating because the American people blame the president of the United States for in fact the increase in the cost of living,” Enten said on Wednesday.
