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It’s starting to feel like President Donald Trump’s chaotic first term for his fellow Republicans.
Lawmakers in the president’s own party, who thought they were inured to his public persona, are cringing at Trump’s attack on a murdered film director and digesting unusually candid comments from his chief of staff — distractions from their harsh political reality as souring public sentiment threatens their control of Congress next year. They can’t seem to unify around a fix for rising health care premiums or tariff-shocked prices.
The end of a new president’s first year is supposed to be a pivot point, when midterm elections come into focus and party leaders game out what can still be accomplished before campaigning saps Washington’s will to do anything at all. Instead, Trump’s administration is prompting warnings from long-serving Republicans, like Rep. Frank Lucas, that midterms are “always extremely complicated for the party in power.”
“If my fellow Republicans in Congress can play as a team, and if administration officials can be smart about their actions, this is going to turn out just fine,” the Oklahoman told Semafor. “Neither of those two things are certain.”
Trump can play a decisive role shaping policy for a party that’s still waiting on his guidance as key health care subsidies expire, lawmakers disagree over whether to pursue another large party-line bill, and Congress splits over air safety. Instead, he’s leaning into personal vitriol toward a dead Hollywood icon as his White House defends chief of staff Susie Wiles and Vice President JD Vance revives Trump’s claim that the US economy is “A++++.”
The contrast between Congress’ policy challenges and Trump’s focus on Reiner angered some Republicans on the Hill; it puzzled others.
“There’s only so much any human being can handle at one time. And when the president says some of the stuff that he says, it’s time-consuming. And it distracts from his work and his agenda, and it distracts from our work,” Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., told Semafor. “We need his input right now on a lot of things.”
A new source of distraction arrived Tuesday when Vanity Fair quoted Wiles saying Trump has “an alcoholic’s personality” and Vance as “a conspiracy theorist,” among other shockingly forthright views. She recalled “a huge disagreement” over Trump’s tariffs and labeled them “more painful than I expected” — both real blows to an administration that’s spent months projecting confidence in its trade agenda.
Wiles dismissed the article as “a disingenuously framed hit piece,” and other administration officials and allies followed suit.
But the moment recalled Trump’s first term, when he churned through senior staff more regularly and his unplanned moves overwhelmed Republican leaders. Senate Majority Leader John Thune even channeled the sphinx-like Mitch McConnell when Semafor asked about Wiles and Trump’s Reiner attacks: “I guess I don’t have an observation about that.”
Two more throwbacks to late 2017: Republicans are still nowhere on health care as they start to fear what the midterms could bring. One person close to the White House sent Semafor polling from a House district that Trump won handily last year, showing his weakness on the economy. This person said a major economic bill could turn the party’s fortunes but that if the “election was today, we’d be cooked.”
That’s a sentiment others close to the administration are beginning to privately concede, too.
One senior House Republican aide said of policies like the tariffs: “Chaos is killing investment.”
“The president could stop it tomorrow; everyone is begging him to,” the aide added. “But he won’t.”
The Labor Department said Tuesday that the unemployment rate hit a four-year high last month — but the labor force participation rate also ticked up. Other positive signs include rising consumer sentiment and a resilient stock market.
At the same time, the Commerce Department said Tuesday that retail sales were little changed, a sign tariffs may be prompting consumers to downshift their spending amid Trump’s tariffs.
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The White House’s response: Calm down. Administration officials vow that voters will begin seeing relief once this year’s tax cut law takes effect, and Wiles herself is turning her team’s attention to the midterms.
White House spokesman Kush Desai pointed to the “robust non-residential construction job growth” in the latest employment report as evidence that the administration’s policies are “laying the groundwork for a long-term economic resurgence.”
“Americans can rest assured that this agenda will continue to clean up the Biden disaster and again deliver working-class prosperity,” Desai said in a statement.
Yet an increasingly vocal cohort of congressional Republicans see spiking health care costs as potentially costing them the House majority. Premiums are poised to rise next year as the party flails on whether to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act subsidies.
“You have the short-term issue of the extension expiring, which will cause premiums to go up, and the longer-term issue of health care affordability,” Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., told Semafor. “You have to deal with both on a dual track — and the failure to do so is stupid.”
The government will release new inflation data this week, and the Supreme Court will rule on the administration’s tariffs next month — both of which could clarify the murky outlook. Until then, Republicans are pleading with voters for more time despite Trump’s campaign vow to “end inflation” immediately after returning to office.
“Getting prices back to where they were before Biden is quite a tall task,” GOP Rep. Andy Barr, who’s running for Kentucky’s Senate seat, told Semafor.
“The Biden administration created a number of enormous messes which are difficult to clean up. I think the public probably has some pretty unrealistic expectations on how quickly you can clean up these messes,” said Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis.
Nonetheless, Johnson said his party “should certainly be concerned” about losing the House.
“I don’t think it’s lost. I would say that the odds are against us right now,” said retiring Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.
Room for Disagreement
Barr predicted that even beyond the tax cut law, the administration’s work with Congress would ultimately make a big dent in voters’ affordability worries.
“What this administration is doing, what this Republican Congress is doing, is focusing on the supply side — tax cuts, deregulation, energy production — and that additional supply is what can push prices down,” he said.
Burgess, Eleanor, and Shelby’s View
We’ll be as blunt as Wiles: The White House’s insistence that things are going well is beginning to come across as willfully ignorant.
Some of the president’s staunchest allies are quietly questioning the administration’s strategy on the economy — a sign of the growing discontent as Republicans near the midterms.
Combine that with everything else pulling the administration’s focus as the tariffs and health care debates flail, and it looks like the wheels are coming off. There’s still time to get back on track, though: Trump is only 11 months in, and there’s still nearly that long before the midterms.
That’s a big opportunity for Republicans, if they can get back on the same page.
Notable
- In an interview for Semafor’s Architects of the New Economy event, Trump deputy chief of staff James Blair predicted voters would begin feeling better about the economy during the first half of next year.
- Trump will give an address to the nation on Wednesday night that aims to touch on the administration’s accomplishments this year and some of his plans going forward.
- Trump defended his chief of staff, telling the New York Post that he agrees with Wiles’ assessment about his “alcoholic’s personality;” Vance also agreed with Wiles, saying he’s “sometimes” a conspiracy theorist, when those conspiracies “are true.”