Trump Says Quiet Part Out Loud About Wanting to Win Midterm Elections |
Forget a conservative majority—Donald Trump personally needs Republicans to win big in the coming midterms.
The president tossed aside the significance of his allies’ local elections while speaking at the GOP retreat Tuesday, telling lawmakers that he needs the party to maintain control of the federal government in order to avoid a Democrat-led impeachment effort.
“You gotta win the midterms,” Trump said. “Because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just going to be—I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me. I’ll get impeached.”
Republicans have had a trifecta in Washington since Trump returned to office, white-knuckling every branch of the federal government. If history is any indicator, that won’t bode well for the party come this fall: In a typical midterm cycle, the presidential party loses grounds via midterms, a phenomenon known as the “presidential penalty.” Those are the basic odds, even before Trump’s devastating tariffs and wildly controversial immigration agenda are taken into account.
But early indicators—such as a healthy dose of special elections in the last year—suggest that the national backlash to Trump’s second-term agenda could be worse for the party than usual. Democrats have already seen surprising gains in unexpected areas of the country, including in Tennessee, Georgia, New Jersey, Virginia, and Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, Republicans seem to be on the verge of panic. Anxious about midterms, the White House has spent months trying to influence red states to gerrymander their congressional lines to turn more seats in Congress. So far, that pressure campaign has had mixed results.
The MAGA leader then went on to suggest that Republicans are too nice to impeach Democrats in turn, claiming that they could have impeached “Joe Biden for a hundred different things.” Fact check: Conservative lawmakers tried to impeach Biden several times, though each effort crashed and burned as claims of mounting evidence turned out to be bunk. In one instance, the caucus’s star witness in the Biden-Burisma bribery scandal fessed up to fabricating the story with the Russians.
Trump, meanwhile, has plenty to worry about should he lose sway over the American legislature. Over the last several months, Trump has committed acts of war against Venezuela without congressional approval, forced the National Guard into cities around the country without forward consent of local governors and mayors, signed an executive order to end birthright citizenship, was revealed to be a close confidant and longtime friend of child sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and routinely attacked the foundational pillars of American democracy by challenging the bounds of the Constitution (to name a small handful of indiscretions).
That should give Democrats plenty of fodder to push Trump out of power—if they can muster the votes.
If they do, plenty of pending charges await the convicted felon—including the dormant consequences of ex–special counsel Jack Smith’s investigation.
New Year, same Stephen Miller.
The often-belligerent White House deputy chief of staff delivered a screaming tirade Monday night about “tin-pot dictators” in response to a simple question about the future of Venezuela’s government, following the Trump administration’s capture of President Nicolás Maduro.
For context, Miller has been on a generational run of appearing completely unhinged while giving screaming interviews on television.
CNN’s Jake Tapper pressed Miller on President Donald Trump’s sudden dismissal of Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado as a viable candidate to lead the country. Following Trump’s evaluation that Machado didn’t have the “respect” of her countrymen, there was some concern that he was simply acting out of pettiness because she won the Nobel Peace Prize over him.
“Why does the president think that Machado should not be the next leader; why does he think she’s weak?” Tapper asked.
Miller sputtered out a meaningless answer referencing “all Venezuela experts” who thought that installing Machado would be “absurd and preposterous.”
“So, should there be an election?” Tapper pressed.
It was a simple enough question, but growing gradually louder, Miller ranted about how the “superpower” United States could not allow Venezuela to operate drug trafficking in its own backyard.
“For years, we sent our soldiers to die in deserts in the Middle East to try to build them parliaments, to try to build them democracies, to try to give them more oil, to try to give them more resources. The future of the free world, Jake, depends on America being able to assert ourselves and our interests without apology,” Miller raved, now fully shouting. “This whole period that happened after World War II where the West began apologizing and groveling and begging and engaging in these vast reparation schemes—”
Miller’s framing ignores the plain fact that American intervention in the Middle East and elsewhere was done entirely in the U.S. interest for oil, power, and security, not for charity.
“I don’t even know what you’re talking about now,” Tapper said.
Miller recoiled, accusing Tapper of “doing that smarmy thing,” claiming that his interviewer knew exactly what he was talking about.
“I asked you about if there should be an election!” Tapper pressed again.
Miller continued to rant about ensuring “security and stability” in Venezuela, even though he had just made clear that Venezuelan interests were the furthest thing from his priorities.
“But the woman running Venezuela right now is part of the Maduro regime,” Tapper pushed back. Rather than back Machado, Trump had signaled that he would recognize Maduro’s Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as the face of the country.
“The reason why I was giving you that speech, which I know you didn’t want to hear, is because you’re approaching this from the wrong frame,” Miller raved. “This........