President Donald Trump is causing headaches for Republicans in 2026, and it'll only get worse, one CNN report said.
Trump heads to Georgia on Thursday to deliver another economic speech amid an ongoing affordability crisis, which he has previously labelled a "hoax" and a "fake narrative" invented by Democrats.
AlterNet reported on Wednesday that insiders were revealing details about a political meeting at the White House among House members. As part of the discussion, Trump's so-called "political czar," James Blair, shared data showing that the president's party always loses seats in the midterms, suggesting he believes the GOP is already predicting they'll lose the narrow House majority.
Trump's top pollster and strategist said the economy is the top issue, regardless of what the president wants to talk about.
Blair "acknowledged that Donald Trump will do what he wants to do, say what he wants to say," a hint that Trump won't be much help on the economy messaging.
But now Trump wants to do something about healthcare, after failing to "repeal and replace" Obamacare during his first term. For over a decade, Republicans have advocated for the "repeal and replace" campaign, but have yet to propose a replacement.
Still, Trump is now set on health care being "a central focus of his midterm sales pitch, despite weak polling and misgivings among some of his own advisers about elevating an issue that’s long proved disastrous for the Republican Party."
One issue will be the idea of lowering prescription drug prices, something that Trump has spent the past year bragging he's already done. Earlier this month, Trump claimed that his new TrumpRX would lower prices, but users discovered that the website only points users to pharmaceutical companies with the promise "deals will be made available through TrumpRx.gov in the coming months."
“We’ve done a bad job over the years in that we don’t talk about health care, and when we do, it’s only when we’re forced to,” said a Trump adviser who was reportedly involved in the discussions. “There’s good stuff that Trump’s trying to do, and we need to get more aggressive on it."
According to the report, Trump has pitched them on passing huge health care legislation by November "despite little congressional appetite to do so."
The White House is trying to shake up the Department of Health and Human Services, led by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has made headlines in recent months for producing workout videos on social media.
The goal of the White House is to "remedy concerns about its messaging operation and move its focus away from more divisive topics like vaccines." Kennedy is an anti-vaccine activist who is now overseeing the largest outbreak of measles since it was eliminated in 2000.
"The intensifying emphasis on health care marks the White House’s latest bid to solve the cost-of-living woes dragging down Trump’s approval ratings and deepening fears within the GOP of a midterm rout," CNN reported.
“There truly are not many things they will be able to do that will alter the fate of the Republican majority,” one Republican close to the White House told CNN. “That’s obviously a tough place for them to be.”
“I don’t think they just want to be attacked for letting health care costs go up,” said longtime Republican operative Alex Conant. “Trump wants to define himself, rather than letting Democrats define the Republican position."