U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a press briefing at the White House, January 20, 2026. REUTERS Nathan Howard
A former Donald Trump lawyer says the 80-year-old’s narcissism will not allow him to see a public rebuke Tuesday night as anything other than personal, and he will likely rage against it in the wee hours and remain hateful for ages if the vote does not go his way.
“Does anybody really know how he's going to react as the night goes on?” asked CNN anchor Erin Burnett, noting that while Trump projects confidence in how the midterms pan out Tuesday night on right-wing podcasts, the station was “hearing privately” that his confidence is shaking. “Is everyone around him basically sitting on pins and needles going, ‘what's he going to do?’”
Ty Cobb, who served as White House special counsel during Donald Trump’s first term, answered that Trump will likely react with little beyond anger and bitterness, and be incapable of taking lessons from a midterm thrashing if Democrats take the House or Senate.
“You know, some of that is predictable. And whether it happens before you go off the air tonight or whether it happens between 2 and 4 in the morning, which is his usual time for writing these screeds, the likelihood is he will take [any] rebuke of the American people personally because of his narcissism,” said Cobb. “He doesn't really have any defenses against that. And he'll lash out.”
Cobb noted that Trump’s politicized DOJ sent out threatening, letters promising prosecutions of Democrats who have gone to court and won judgments against what the DOJ “has tried to do in Alaska,” and he said “I think we'll see a lot of that retaliation.”
“But whether he does anything more, I think they're on pins and needles for that,” Cobb said.
One thing will be clear, however, Cobb added. Trump will be scanning for someone to blame, and he won’t care if his target is foe or friend.
“It’s interesting that in a lot of these states where Trump would be calling fraud if he calls fraud, will be in deeply red states, states that went for him by double digits,” said Burnett. “If Democrats win in those states, a lot of the people charged with overseeing and certifying those elections are Republican secretaries of state.”
“Cobb pointed out that Trump “didn’t have any hesitation pointing the finger at Georgia Republicans who refused to give him the 11,800 [votes he demanded when he lost to Biden.]
“Brad Raffensperger. Yep,” confirmed Burnett.
“Right. So, you know, if he gets rejected, it doesn't really matter who does the rejecting what their label is. He hates him and he'll go after him,” said Cobb.
He added, however, that many Republican state officials, unlike Trump, “have character,” which will surely anger the president this midterm.
“Fortunately, there are some Republicans of character out there. So I really think we'll see some maturity from the candidates,” said Cobb. “We're not going to see maturity from the president.”