GOP insiders tear apart Todd Blanche for evaporating DOJ

Deputy U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche pauses while speaking during a press conference at the Justice Department in Washington, D.C., U.S., January 30, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

For two people who once occupied high rungs of the Republican Party’s communications ladder the admission must have been difficult: Republicans have hung themselves.

Former Republican communications director Doug Heye and GOP communications director Tara Setmayer could muster no strength Friday night on CNN to defend the party’s capitulation to President Donald Trump in his second term. Both blamed the party for Trump’s most Friday move to personally direct the Department of Justic to insert itself in Alaskan elections if Republicans lose.

Trump freely admitted that he ordered his politicized Department of Justice to insert itself into an election if and only if his side loses. And Attorney General Todd Blanche — who was Trump’s defense attorney in his hush money case that he lost — made clear that he has no problem serving Trump in that role as AG. This, they said, left no misperception of a separation and independence between the department of justice and the White House.

But Heye told CNN “OutFront” host Erin Burnett that Republicans knew they were voting for a politicized DOJ when they approved Blanche for confirmation.

“I made a bet with a friend of mine who worked for one of the three, what we call the YOLO Caucus: [GOP Sens.] Thom Tillis, Bill Cassidy, John Cornyn. I said, ‘I'll bet you a real fancy steak dinner that all three of them, who are really troubled with Todd Blanche, will vote ‘Yes’. He called me a name I'm not going to repeat on air, but he wouldn't take the bet. So, when all three voted ‘yes,’ I said, ‘do I get my steak dinner?’”

“This is what Republicans have signed up for,” added Heye. “And unfortunately, if chaos is ensued here in the next couple of weeks in Alaska … Donald Trump is already laying his case out for how he's going to muddy these waters.”

Setmayer was no less accusatory.

“This is literally just the tip of the iceberg. I mean, Donald Trump has been laying the foundation for interfering in these midterms for years,” she said. “A lot of his acolytes have been studying how to manipulate the system, how to stress test it, ever since January 6. And now you have no guardrails. And there are so many people in positions of power now that that weren't there the first time around who are looking at war gaming things and ways to do this. I'm concerned about a trifecta here.”

“And the and the thing about it, [Trump] is so audacious. Now they're telegraphing what they're going to do. I mean, they've been telling us for years. They laid it out in project 2025. You had these different legal think-tanks where … a lot of MAGA supporters were cooking up these ideas. I just don't want Democrats to suffer from a lack of imagination of what this administration is laying the foundation to do come Election Day,” Setmayer said.

“They're showing us they have people in power who can do it. And Todd Blanche, I guess he fell asleep during the Watergate history books, because that is why we had that separation between the Justice Department and the president of the United States,” she added. “… [T]hey're going to mess with the system.”

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