The White House is diving deeper into midterm mode.<\/p>\n
Administration officials this month called in disgruntled parts of the 2024 coalition \u2014 from podcaster Joe Rogan to\u00a0the Make America Health Again bloc\u00a0\u2014 to make up. Three Cabinet officials have departed the administration in a two-month span, ending over a year of stability and likely giving the GOP-controlled Senate time to confirm replacements before a potential shift in the chamber. And President Donald Trump got back on the road last week for a two-day swing of base-rallying speeches in key battleground states.<\/p>\n
Taken together, the moves \u2014 which come as chief of staff Susie Wiles convenes a series of strategy meetings, and her deputy, James Blair,\u00a0\u00a0takes a temporary leave<\/u>\u00a0to oversee the political operation from the outside \u2014 demonstrate the White House\u2019s increasing focus on the fast-approaching midterms. The ramp-up comes as\u00a0the president\u2019s poll numbers sag<\/u>\u00a0and Republicans grow increasingly concerned about their midterms prospects \u2014 fears validated Tuesday night with\u00a0a loss in a Virginia redistricting battle.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat you\u2019ve got is Susie and James [Blair], they\u2019re doing the blocking and tackling that needs to be done to put Republicans in the best position possible,\u201d said a person close to the White House, granted anonymity to discuss the strategy, including the effort to repair any damage with key 2024 constituencies.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s trying to put the band back together. The reason why the president won all those battleground states \u2014 he put together that record coalition,\u201d the person continued. \u201cIt\u2019s hugely important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Republicans have grown increasingly concerned that the president is hurting their election-year prospects including by\u00a0creating distractions<\/u>\u00a0with a war in Iran that threatens to overshadow economic gains and blunt their affordability message. Trump continues to promise a quick end to the war, but negotiations to resolve the conflict are again on hold.<\/p>\n
Trump, at least temporarily, appeased some anxious Republicans last week with midterms-focused speeches out West. After a five-week essential hiatus from outside-the-Beltway speeches, he touted the party\u2019s tax cuts and hit a slew of base-rallying topics in his Phoenix speech \u2014 from border security to crime and transgender women in women\u2019s sports.<\/p>\n
One GOP campaign strategist, granted anonymity to discuss planning, said there will be an uptick in these events.<\/p>\n
\n\u201cHe is starting to ramp that up, and I think we\u2019re going to see more of that,\u201d the strategist said. \u201cThey want to see him out there. They want to see him on the trail, and in these states talking to people.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nIn the speech, the day after Tax Day, Trump also touted the tax benefits in his megabill and criticized Democrats for voting against it.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump is the unequivocal leader of the Republican Party and remains laser focused on keeping the American people safe, lowering costs for working families, and making our country greater than ever before,\u201d said White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers. \u201cLast week, Americans across the country received historic tax refunds thanks to President Trump\u2019s One Big Beautiful Bill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back at the White House, the president also held a number of events this month designed to shore up support with key parts of his 2024 coalition that had begun to fray. On Saturday, Trump had Rogan in the Oval Office to roll out an executive order to review psychedelic drugs for conditions like severe depression. Rogan, who is extremely influential among young men, opposes the war with Iran, talking on his podcast to agrowing cohort of young MAGA loyalists<\/u> who feel betrayed by Trump\u2019s actions with Israel in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a crew inside the White House that realizes that \u2026 they have to listen to the groups when the president\u2019s popularity is down,\u201d said a person close to the administration, granted anonymity to speak freely.<\/p>\n
In mid-April, top White House officials including senior adviser Stephen Miller and press secretary Karoline Leavitt\u00a0sat for a lengthy listening session with MAHA advocates<\/u>, followed by a tour of the Oval Office from Trump. The visit, while viewed as only a start by some of the president\u2019s MAHA supporters, was seen as a peace offering to the movement that helped elect him, after the White House handed a slew of wins to the pesticide industry that went against MAHA\u2019s goals.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very open ended, it was very conversational, and it was just, \u2018Tell us what’s resonating with you. What would you like to see happen?\u2019\u201d Alex Clark, one of the MAHA influencers invited to the White House, told POLITICO after the meeting. \u201cAnd everybody was taking notes and just really open to hearing what we had to say.\u201d<\/p>\n
The White House was eager to hear from the most vocal critics of the administration\u2019s recent order boosting domestic glyphosate production in defiance of MAHA\u2019s wishes, White House senior adviser Calley Means said Tuesday at the POLITICO Health Care Summit. He said the White House asked Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s team to compile the top 10 critics of the order.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey invited them to the White House. We had a private meeting — two hours, no holds barred, direct conversation. And then they spent a lot of time with the president,\u201d Means said. \u201cInevitably with something this high stakes, there\u2019s going to be frustration. Inevitably there\u2019s going to be ups and downs.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark, who had been posting to her tens of thousands of followers in the lead up to the meeting about the huge losses facing the GOP in the midterms because of Trump\u2019s actions on pesticides, said the meeting was at least a start. \u201cThey\u2019re trying to understand,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
And on Tuesday night, a recording of Trump reading a verse from the Old Testament will be released as part of a presentation at the Museum of the Bible \u2014 a week after he spurred backlash with an AI-generated depiction of himself as Jesus.<\/p>\n
The midterms \u2014 and the risk that the Senate\u2019s ability to confirm Trump appointments flips in Democrats\u2019 hands \u2014 also loom large on personnel decisions. Trump has enjoyed a swift confirmation process for most Cabinet-level appointees and Republicans have about six more months to leverage a majority to confirm replacements, including for recent vacancies at the Justice and Labor departments.<\/p>\n
\nScandal-ridden Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemerstepped down\u00a0<\/u>Monday, amid a series of misconduct allegations against her and her top staffers. Her departure follows former Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, who was replaced by Senate-confirmed Secretary Markwayne Mullin, and former attorney general Pam Bondi, who has been replaced with acting director Todd Blanche.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe timing is important on these changes because the margin in the Senate matters and with the midterms the White House knows it\u2019s better to make changes now where we know we can confirm folks instead of taking the risk later,\u201d said a second person close to the White House.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The White House is diving deeper into midterm mode. Administration officials this month called in disgruntled parts of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":3054,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-us"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3053"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3055,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3053\/revisions\/3055"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.cedritech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}