US Senator Jim Justice (R-WV) traveses a hallway on the day of Senate Republican caucus leadership elections at the US Capitol in Washington, DC, US, November 10, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz
Despite the size of Republicans’ spanking last week and President Donald Trump’s directinvolvement with it, NBC News is still having a hard time finding Republicans with the strength to state the obvious.
“I’ll have to get back to you,” said first-term Rep. Gabe Evans, R-Colo., when asked if Trump’s Iran war and tariff policies got him slaughtered by 15 percentage points last week. “… We’re still looking at all the data,” he said Wednesday.
Evans won his district just two years ago — a startling reversal.
Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.Va., similarly, made no bones about how thoroughly Republicans were trounced in the midterm election, but he was unwilling to point fingers at one of the most unpopular Republican presidents in recent history.
“We forgot those people out there are hurting, and they vote,” said Justice. “We got our ever-loving butt handed to us.”
But when asked about Trump’s influence NBC News said Justice “hesitated” to answer.
“Look, everything plays a part in the whole deal,” said the senator.
NBC News then prodded Justice specifically about the role of Trump’s highly unpopular war in Iran. Justice replied that Trump was given advice about Iran and processed the situation “as best he possibly can.”
“The remarks capture the Republican zeitgeist on Capitol Hill after the party suffered one of its biggest electoral disasters of the century, losing over 40 House seats and at least eight Senate seats, some in deep red territory,” reports NBC News. “The results and the exit polls tell a clear story: A country that elected Trump in 2024 to lower the cost of living deemed him a failure on that core promise, blaming his policies for making things worse and punishing Republicans from coast to coast.”
But even though Republicans who spoke on the record claim they “want a course correction,” “shell-shocked lawmakers are deeply reluctant” to point to Trump. NBC News added that Trump’s Republican Party is even less willing to “use their power on Capitol Hill to change [Trump’s] policies that drove up the costs of gas, diesel and food,” in the first place.
Sen. John Kennedy, R-La., for example, told NBC News that the 2026 beat-down was the result of “an economic election,” and he played down the role of the Iran war on the economy that drove GOP defeat.
“I don’t think that Republicans lost every single statewide election in Texas because voters thought that America’s foreign policy was too interventionist,” argued Kennedy, adding that Republicans and he should be “looking for self-examination.”
But does Trump also need to do some self-examination, NBC News asked.
“I don’t have any advice today for the president,” Kennedy answered.
“The[se] early responses indicate that Republicans on Capitol Hill — at least the ones who survived the election — will remain loyal to Trump as he enters his final two years.”
This also appears to include Republicans that Trump got bombed out of office, like Evans.