Trump Goons’ Phone Call Mocking Their Own Candidates Revealed
A video call led by top adviser James Blair six days before the midterm crashout was extraordinarily bleak.

Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
President Donald Trump’s top strategists collapsed into gallows humor and mockery as the wheels came off the Republican midterm campaign, according to insiders.
The Democratic Party rode a historic blue wave to victory in Tuesday’s elections, capturing majorities in both the Senate and the House. Polling had long suggested a potential catastrophe for Trump—who’d urged voters to pretend he was on the ballot—but as the potential crisis became clear last week, his team turned to jokes about cyanide.
“Do you want the white pill first, or the black pill first?” asked Tony Fabrizio, the president’s chief pollster, on a video call with more than 24 Trump strategists, according to the New York Times.
During the call, six days before the election, one of the Republican Party’s top data consultants floated a scenario that projected a wipeout.
Blair reportedly led the macabre calls.
Brian Snyder/REUTERS
“I’m getting my affairs in order,” James Blair, who took a temporary leave of absence in April to run Trump’s political operation for the midterms, said to laughter, according to four people on the call. “I suggest everybody else do the same.”
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The 30-minute call stuck to this macabre theme, according to the New York Times.
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“At least Bibi won. He’ll protect us,” Blair, the White House deputy chief of staff before his secondment, joked of the Israeli prime minister and Trump ally, Benjamin Netanyahu, who had just lost his majority in parliament.
“Maybe we could get asylum in Israel,” Mr. Fabrizio riffed.
“Look, it’s fine,” Blair then told the group sarcastically. “I think we’ll just pull a Mike Lindell and demand a recount regardless of how many points we’re down.”

Blair led Trump’s midterm effort.
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Both Netanyahu and Lindell had cried foul after suffering at the voting booth. In August, Lindell, the Trumpy MyPillow founder, lost in a Republican primary to represent Minnesota.
The team joked about what had been considered safe seats, too, referring to “Battleground Mississippi,” a state Trump had carried by nearly 23 points two years ago. Two days after Election Day, the Mississippi Senate race is still too close to call, although Democrat Scott Colom is leading in the count.
The Times report also cited a close Trump aide who said that the president wondered what effect his war on Iran had on voters.
“If we never went into Iran, what do you think would happen in the midterms?” the president had asked privately, they said.
Alex Pfeiffer, a spokesman for the MAGA Inc. super PAC, said, “The people peddling these made-up quotes and false gossip not only demean and belittle the historic and generous investment by the president into the party’s midterm effort, but they also slander the hard work of the many who contributed to this effort. They are cowards and losers.”
A White House official recycled a statement from earlier this week about Trump not being on the ballot. “And it’s proven that Trump voters show up when he is on the ballot. Candidate quality matters, and President Trump did a better job promoting many of the candidates on the ballot than the candidates did themselves,” they said.
Blair, too, appeared to mock the quality of some GOP candidates on a separate call.
“I have seen the enemy,” he said a week before the other call. “And it is us.”
Fabrizio agreed: “In many places.”
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