The one thing Trump 'won’t do' to save the GOP from voters’ wrath

President Donald Trump walks at Newark Liberty International Airport as he travels en route to Trump National Golf Club Bedminster, in Newark, New Jersey, August 7, 2026. REUTERS/Elizabeth Frantz

The midterms are widely predicted to be a major beating for the Republican Party, and as one pundit argued for MS NOW, there is one thing President Donald Trump could try that might spare the party some of the wrath of voters, but it is unfortunately one thing he absolutely "won't do."

David Drucker is a longtime political commentator who currently works as a contributing writer for The Dispatch and as a contributor for MS NOW. On Friday, he was among the guests on a panel for the latter network discussing the uninspiring new jobs report and whether or not Republicans have enough time to change voters' minds about them. When pressed about what Republicans might be able to do, Drucker did not see many possibilities available.

"I don't know, make a wishand a fountain?" he said. "I mean, there'sjust not much you can do amonth out from the elections. Imean, look, even 34 years agowe could at least talk aboutelection day being a month out.But really, October is electionmonth because you have so muchmail-in voting and absentee voting... Andwhenever the party in the White House is under fire because of the economy, they're going tomake the case that they simplyneed more time, and thatthe last thing voters want todo is put [those] people back incharge..."

He added: "But you know what we're seeing with these numbers, and I think this is key here, is that if you look at polling over the course of the last 18 months, voters did give President Trump some time to get the economy in order the way they wanted him to, to arrest inflation, bring down the cost of living, broadly speaking, and everything that goes along with that. And they simply are done giving him time. And so I don't know what republicans do to deal with this."

Later on in the conversation, host Erielle Reshef suggested to the panel that Trump is facing a similar dynamic to the one that was widely credited with helping sink Joe Biden's presidency, in which he continues to tout certain numbers as indicators that his economy is strong, while voters continue to feel poorly about their own finances. Drucker suggested that this is actually a fairly common tactic for presidents, but with Trump, he lacks the ability to do one key thing that might help the message land.

"It's the same thing that hurts every president in every election where he's under fire, where his party's under fire," Drucker explained. "But it's hurting President Trump, more so because of his particular stubbornness. And I think we need to, like, separate out two things here. So any president is going to try and make the case that things may not appear as good as you'd like them to be, but they're actually a lot better than you think, and 'let me explain to you everything that's happening either beneaththe surface or above thesurface that I'm not sureyou're aware of,' so that theycan make a positive case fortheir agenda. What separatesTrump is that he won't do whatpresidents usually do, which isgive a little hat tip to thefact that voters aren't happyand they're not feeling itenough, or they're not feelingit at all."

He added: "Whatthis president has done issimply say that people aren'tfeeling what they're actuallyfeeling, and it's all fake. Andwe've seen in polling and dataand in my conversations withvoters going back a year, thatone of the problems thepresident has, one of the bigproblems, is not just that theydon't think his agenda isworking, that the cost ofliving isn't going down,because they don't think he's focused on it. Theydon't think he cares about it."

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