President Donald Trump listens during a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy (not pictured) amid negotiations to end the Russian war in Ukraine, at the White House (Reuters)
In spite of recent gerrymandering wins for the GOP, one White House correspondent has argued that there is still a "part" of President Donald Trump that believes that the midterms are a "lost cause" for him.
Democrats remain primed to retake the House majority in the November elections, but their potential margin of victory shrank last week after the Virginia Supreme Court shot down the state government's new district map, which would have fought back against the GOP's gerrymandering crusade and potentially created four new Democratic seats. Red states in the South are also moving swiftly to gerrymander away majority-minority districts with Democratic representatives after an alarming recent ruling from the conservative Supreme Court.
On Monday, Semafor's Shelby Talcott appeared as a guest panelist on CNN's Inside Politics with Dana Bash, where she discussed the prevailing sentiments within the Trump administration about their midterm chances in the wake of these developments. According to her sources, those close to the president remain cautiously optimistic, much as they were in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
"When I talk to trumpadministration officials aboutthe midterms, specifically, Iwould describe it very similarlyas how I would have describedthe end of the campaign, whichis cautious optimism," Talcott explained. "They trulybelieve, as they did during thecampaign, that they have someinroads. But there'sacknowledgment that there is alot against them."
Breaking with that feeling, she added, there are certain key signs to suggest that the president has not internalized that sort of optimism.
"And to thatpoint, I always go back to whatthe president himself has saidrepeatedly, which is essentially that, you know, the party inpower oftentimes does verypoorly in the midterms," she continued. "And tome, that signals that there is apart of him that believes that, you know, this is kind of a lost cause almost."
Elsewhere during her appearance on Monday, Talcott also touched on some brewing concerns from "nervous Republicans" about what sort of backlash their actions are inviting from Democrats once they return to power.
"That's been anargument that some of the moresort of nervous republicans havemade, whether it be related tothe midterms or really anythingthat the president is doing,whether it's the Supreme Court, ome of these lawsuits thathe's pushed," Talcott said. "Is that hold on asecond. We might not be in powerforever. Right. And whendemocrats get to power, aren'tthey just going to use all ofthese mechanisms that you've nowopened up?"