A high-stakes strategy session for Republicans descended into uncomfortable territory when a senator questioned whether President Donald Trump would ever stop picking fights with his own party and start focusing on the midterms.
The confrontation unfolded during a closed-door briefing on midterm messaging and affordability hosted by political operatives James Blair, Alex Latcham, and pollster Tony Fabrizio, according to reporting from Politico’s Playbook.
Sen. Steve Daines cornered Trump’s team, demanding to know when the president would finally pivot from bashing fellow Republicans to targeting political opponents. The Montana lawmaker’s question captured a growing panic inside the GOP, where lawmakers are privately exasperated by Trump’s relentless feuds with other members of his party, even as vulnerable Democrats escape his wrath.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune stressed the urgent need to capture swing voters in Maine, Michigan, and North Carolina, while Latcham sought to reassure the room about tight coordination between the White House, the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and MAGA Inc.
Trump’s foreign policy obsessions have also hijacked his party’s political agenda. Back in January, his intense fixation on the U.S. capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro triggered widespread frustration among aides and lawmakers who wanted him focused on inflation and healthcare, according to Reuters.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, her then deputy James Blair—who took a leave of absence in April to run Trump’s outside political and midterm operations—and Vice President JD Vance repeatedly had to steer internal meetings back to domestic concerns.
Months later, Trump has swapped Venezuela for an ongoing war in Iran—and voters are punishing Republicans for the fallout. A fresh Reuters/Ipsos poll shows 37 percent of registered voters now trust Democrats to handle the economy compared to 36 percent for Republicans, marking the first time Democrats have led on economic stewardship since May 2017.
The economic drag is hitting Americans directly at the pump, with national gas prices jumping to around $4.06 per gallon—nearly 40 percent higher than the $2.98 drivers paid on Feb. 27, right before Trump launched his war on Iran, according to AAA data.
The economic pressure has pushed Trump’s approval rating down to 35 percent in the Reuters/Ipsos survey, just a single point above his second-term low.
Predictably, the 80-year-old president blew a fuse on Truth Social, railing against “Radical Left’s Fake Poll numbers” and insisting his “REAL Polling Numbers” are “the best they have ever been.”
Yet the bleak numbers are everywhere. CNN places his approval at a matching post-Jan. 6 low of 34 percent, with 73 percent of respondents reporting he hasn’t paid enough attention to top national problems.
AP-NORC has him tied at a post-2017 low of 33 percent, Quinnipiac puts him at a career-low 32 percent, and a CBS News/YouGov poll revealed 55 percent of Americans believe the Republican Party is actively harming affordability.
The Daily Beast has contacted Daines and the White House for comment.
