U.S. President Donald Trump signs a bill with U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) and Senator John Barrasso (R-WY) at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 3, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
The White House has "so little faith" in President Donald Trump's ability to control himself that they've decided to simply abandon their efforts and put the onus on Republicans in Congress instead.
The Atlantic's Michael Scherer reported Tuesday, "top White House advisers and strategists have so little faith that he will stick to the script in the months ahead that they are reverting to a 2024 playbook: They will let Trump be Trump, while demanding discipline from the rest of the GOP ecosystem.”
Last week, AlterNet wrote about a White House meeting in which so-called "political czar" James Blair told the room that Donald Trump will always do whatever he wants and say whatever he wants, whether or not it is on message.
“The president will have his message. And that works for him. But you are not the president, and here are the messages that the data show work,” the person attending the meeting said, summarizing the new plan.
The Trump advisors want members of Congress to "drive the economic storyline home."
"Even Franklin D. Roosevelt, in the 1934 midterms, did not go around saying that everything was great, Blair told the crowd," according to the report. "Instead, Roosevelt’s team argued that things were getting better, and that if Democrats stayed in power, much more improvement awaited."
The latest NPR/PBS/Marist survey, released on Monday, found that 55 percent of those polled believe Trump is moving the country in the wrong direction. It's an increase from April 2025, when it was 51 percent. The month before, March 2025, it was at just 48 percent.
"The challenge, of course, is similar to the one Trump’s team faced during the previous presidential election, when they rolled out an advertising strategy largely focused on economic concerns that felt disconnected from everything Trump was saying," Scherer wrote. "That difficulty is amplified because Trump is now in the White House, and this is his economy."
Trump has spent the past year taking credit for any economic successes and blaming former President Joe Biden and the Federal Reserve for any failures.
Rather than spending his first year on domestic matters and the economy, Trump has turned to focus on foreign policy, revenge for his enemies and renovation projects across Washington D.C.
They expect Trump to begin traveling weekly beginning in the spring.