A combination of Donald Trump’s obsession with building his White House ballroom and his effort to stay out of the government shutdown impasse—while withholding funds from battleground states—is setting the Republican Party up for a fall in next year’s midterms, analysts say.
According to members of an MSNBC panel on Friday morning, Oval Office insiders claim the president is “super distracted” and seems unaware that he is placing his party in peril as polls show Democrats gaining more and more support.
“Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough highlighted polling out of Virginia, a state heavily impacted by the government shutdown, noting, “Republicans may get wiped out there.”
He continued, “Up in New Jersey, Donald Trump is bragging about slashing funding and ending the Hudson River tunnel, right? So he’s bragging about making New Jersey residents’ commute more hellish. That’s impacting what? The New Jersey governor’s race. So [Democrat] Mikie Sherrill is being helped out by Donald Trump right now because he continues to brag about killing that project.”
Scarborough then asked co-host Jonathan Lemire, “Tell me, what are you hearing from the White House? They have to understand this is bad for them in Jersey. This is bad for them in Virginia. This is bad for them across the country.”
Lemire responded, “White House aides, as I’ve been reporting on this show, have been privately saying to me for ten days or so now they think, ‘Oh, the end is in sight, the president’s going to step in and get this done.’”
However, he added, “The issue is, as I’ve been hearing the last 24 hours, the president’s not really paying attention.”
“Because Joe is right,” Lemire told the panel. “The president, you know, people—even his critics—will say he has a good read of the room, like he understands what issues are important and what’s resonating with folks. He’s missing this. And it’s about the bubble that he’s in, it would seem. And every day this goes on is worse for Republicans. But of course, more than anything, it’s worse for Americans, and he still is, at least nominally, the president of all of us.”
When asked what she is hearing, contributor Katty Kay offered, “I mean, even for a president who has an enormous amount of energy across a broad range of subjects, the reports I’ve had from people who have gone into the Oval Office and seen him recently are that he is super distracted at the moment. Trying to get him to focus on one particular policy issue is very difficult.”
Kay added, “He’s talking about the renovations of the White House. He’s talking about the Lincoln Bedroom. He’s not a president who is particularly, you know, nailed in on one particular issue.”
https://www.rawstory.com/gop-wiped-out-bubble/