'The disaster that is Trump': Ex-GOP lawmaker predicts midterm 'chaos' for Republicans
Although the United States' 2024 presidential election was close — and far from the "landslide" that President Donald Trump and many of his MAGA allies claim it was — Trump ultimately had an advantage over Democratic nominee Kamala Harris when it came to the economy. Trump won the national popular vote by roughly 1.5 percent, and polls showed the economy to be the top factor.
While the U.S. enjoyed record-low unemployment under former President Joe Biden, inflation was a major source of frustration to many of the swing voters and independents who chose Trump over Harris. But with President Trump now imposing steep tariffs on a long list of countries, quite a few economists are warning that the U.S. could suffer inflation much worse than anything it experienced under Biden.
Trump and the economy were the focus of a panel discussion on MSNBC's "The Weekend" on Saturday morning, April 26. The panel included hosts Michael Steele, Symone Sanders-Townsend and Alicia Menendez along with Mother Jones' David Corn and former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Illinois).
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Corn and Walsh have very different political and economic views. While Corn is a liberal, Walsh is a right-wing Never Trump conservative who was active in the Tea Party movement during the 2010s. But during the panel, they agreed that Trump's tariffs are very bad for the U.S. economy.
Corn lamented, "Trump is driving the economy off a cliff. People are going to be upset; there's going to be a popular reaction to that. If the Democrats don't try to exploit that, take advantage of that — I mean that in a good way — across the board, it would be political malpractice."
The Mother Jones journalist got no argument from either Steele, a Never Trumper who formerly headed the Republican National Committee (RNC), or Walsh.
The former GOP congressman, who supported Harris in 2024, predicted that the 2026 midterms will be terrible for Republicans.
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Walsh told the MSNBC panel, "Because of the madness and the chaos and the disaster that is Trump, Democrats are going to be competitive in districts and states this year, next year that we can't even imagine right now."
Walsh advised Democrats, "So, doggone it, field candidates, get active, spend money everywhere."
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