In a Fox interview that aired on Wednesday, President Donald Trump effectively admitted that the ongoing Republican campaign to rig electoral maps in their favor to avert a wipeout in this year’s midterm elections has been a spectacular failure.
Speaking to his longtime booster and Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo, Trump made a perfunctory statement that Republicans would “do good” in the election but then began speaking as if the party had already lost.
“When somebody gets elected president, that party always loses the midterms, I don’t know why. I don’t know why, nobody can explain it,” Trump said.
He further complained that he had “the greatest opening year” ever and “the greatest economy ever.” Both assertions are false. The public surely doesn’t think things have gone great, with Trump’s disapproval spiking an average of 13 percentage points since Inauguration Day to a current level of 56%. On the economy, unemployment is up after years of decline under former President Joe Biden and consumer sentiment has begun to nosedive.
Trump even restated his lie that he has “ended” eight wars and more absurdly said “nobody” has ended wars, which is completely ignorant.
Trump then went on to make excuses. “Even when you have a great president, they tend to lose the midterms, it doesn’t make sense to me,” Trump said.
Trump’s comments, even with all its embellishments, is the closest he has gotten to admitting what millions of voters can see coming: Republicans are headed toward massive losses in this year’s races and could lose the total control of Congress, which they have enjoyed for so long.
Republicans are being punished for backing Trump to the hilt on a cascade of unpopular initiatives. The decision to wage war against Iran never had mass support, even before gas prices spiked and added to global economic chaos. Trump’s tariff policies have raised the costs of goods and services without providing the jobs, bringing production back to the U.S., and international payments that Trump touted.
Voters are punishing Trump and Republicans for backing overt racism, blatant sexism, and a barrage of openly bigoted policies and initiatives targeting the LGBTQ+ community, particularly transgender Americans.
In between his bluster and complaining to Fox, Trump also effectively admitted that the Republican plan to change the boundaries of congressional districts to favor the party in multiple states is not working.
Faced with electoral headwinds, Republicans chose to pursue redistricting as opposed to honestly facing Democrats at the ballot box. But instead of giving in to this strategy, Democrats in multiple states pushed back. They have been wildly successful, with voters turning out in droves in states like California solely to rebuke the GOP’s power grab.
Perhaps nothing sums up the sorry political state of affairs for Trump better than the venue where he chose to make his gripe. Instead of speaking to legitimate journalists who would ask him serious questions and perhaps question his assertions, Trump scheduled his time with Bartiromo, best known for shilling for Trump and pushing his 2020 election conspiracy theories, costing her employer nearly $800 million.
That isn’t strength. That is a sign of defeat in progress.
Published with permission of Daily Kos
