karoline leavitt

Former Asst. U.S. Attorney Andrew Weissmann says there are at least three reasons President Donald Trump did not try to deny the midterm election that swept Republicans out of power in a rush of voter wrath. And one of those reasons came from directly inside Trump’s administration.

“In Trump 1.0 there were internal people to the White House and the Department of Justice and the FBI and within the intelligence Community who were pushing back [against Trump’s incursions against democracy in 2021,” Weissmann told Bulwark publisher Sarah Longwell in a Thursday night podcast.

Trump 2.0, he said, is more of a science experiment on what happens when you have only loyalty and incompetence as hiring criteria. But in 1.0, Weissmann said the military and other leaders made clear that they were not willing to do to keep Trump in power.

This year, however, some members of Trump’s legal team were pushing back less overtly, subtly signaling to judges and courts that Trump’s legal filings to intercept democracy had no foundation.

“There were signs of people internally not going along with things,” said Weissmann. “… The solicitor general, when they filed a brief in the Supreme Court on the list of 20,000 [California ballots] to set aside, he obviously didn't have enough clout or power to tell the White House ‘we're not doing that,’ or ‘no, or I'm leaving.’ But when you read the [Solicitor General John Sauer’s brief, I have never read a brief that signals as loudly as it could that this is a bull—— application.”

“It's read the following way: our office has been told that there is this list and we have been told that it is believed to be accurate based on information that, at the time they looked at it, that may support a review,” said Weissmann, between smiles. “I mean, people were joking about it. I'm not sure you could put more caveats into that. That is not how you start a brief. [Sauer’s] basically saying, ‘this is bull——, and I'm forced to do this.”

The internal people not going along with Trump’s schemes to overthrow the 2026 midterms, however, did not include AG Todd Blanche, Trump’s former defense attorney who Trump brought on to run the DOJ.

“Not Todd Blanche. He's all in, in the grossest way,” Weissmann told Longwell, and then added that if there was any official in the second half of Trump’s term worthy of impeachment it was Blanche—who has been serving Trump ever since he failed to protect him from a hush-money conviction over illegal funds paid to a sex-industry worker.

The Wall Street Journal published an editorial Wednesday, wagging a finger at those who feared that President Donald Trump would insert himself into the election process and attempt to steal the 2026 midterms. Experts quickly shut down the editors.

Walter Olson, senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies, issued a takedown of the Journal's efforts to downplay what Trump did to meddle in the election as "hyperventilating." The Journal seems to think that everything went off without a hitch, conveniently forgetting the months of litigation that led up to the big day.

"The editorial’s chosen narrative requires a great forgetfulness about the actual record. It is clear that for the past 18 months, Trump has indeed been intent on messing with the midterms," Olson said.

It began with Trump's executive order in March 2025 that gave the federal government, namely the president, power over elections, which the Constitution outlines as the role of the states.

"The administration continued with Trump’s abortive plan to install his appointees at the US Postal Service as deciders of who would be permitted to vote by mail," Olson continued. "And it further continued with his meritless last-minute litigation seeking to interfere with vote tabulation in California and certification in Alaska."

He doesn't even go into the FBI raid on the home of a Democratic member of Congress weeks ahead of the election. The attempt to force through the SAVE Act, which would have made voting significantly more difficult with added ID demands that require citizenship proof.

When Trump couldn't get the SAVE Act passed, he tried another executive order. Then he tried to seize voter rolls so the Department of Homeland Security could "look for immigrants" who didn't have the right to vote but were signed up. Several states fought that litigation for months.

Then, the White House decided it would use the Justice Department to target election workers for counting ballots that might be from undocumented immigrants. The DOJ threatened to begin arrests, which would require access to voters' lists as well. Then, the Department of Homeland Security tried to claim it had a list of 20,000 illegal voters on California's voter rolls. A simple spot check found dozens of citizens on its list. The DOJ's own lawyer confessed the list was a catastrophe of inaccurate information.

Then they filed another lawsuit trying to stop the certification of the Alaska Senate election. That doesn't even address the $5,000 checks he offered to voters if they voted Republican.

"As late as Monday, in a moment all the more devastating for its quietness, the US Supreme Court denied, without explanation, a call for response or noted dissent of the administration’s request to keep alive its absurd suit seeking to interfere with California tabulation," wrote Olson.

He noted that almost none of this made it into the Journal's mockery of Democrats' fainting couches and pearl clutching. "Nor do the various other ways Trump set the stage, including relentlessly sowing doubt about the system’s honesty and issuing penalty orders intended to destroy law firms and particular lawyers who had previously bested him and his allies in court on election matters," Olson added.

The Journal conceded that his mid-district gerrymandering was an effort to unfairly influence the election. But they mocked the fears that the administration would steal ballots. They ignored that the DOJ already has stolen 2020 election ballots from Fulton County, Georgia.

"The notion that Trump did not try to meddle improperly with the midterms is revisionist history that we should emphatically reject from the day it appears," Olson closed.

In the run-up to the 2026 midterm elections, President Donald Trump repeatedly threatened to "nationalize" the contests to guarantee Republican victories rather than allow Democrats to prevail. Yet those who argued he ultimately lacked a magic button to press and cancel the elections wound up being correct. Democrats handily took back the Senate and House of Representatives without a peep of protest from the president.

Instead, according to reports, the president is listening to his fellow Republicans explain why they think the GOP lost. And they often tend to argue that the explanation is that he didn't do enough to further their own pet causes.

"Some conservative groups were quick to blame the losses on what they saw as Republicans abandoning longstanding conservative principles," reported Philip Wegmann of The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. "“Republican consultants got the campaign they wanted, and the defeat they earned. You cannot spend years telling your base to sit down and shut up, then act surprised when they don’t stand up for you on Election Day,” Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America President Marjorie Dannenfelser wrote in a memo after the election, citing the administration’s lack of action on abortion as one reason religious voters didn’t turn out in support of Trump’s party."

Wegmann added, "The Taxpayer Protection Alliance, a conservative group focused on limited government, blamed Trump’s embrace of economic populism, particularly the use of tariffs, for driving up costs for voters and driving down GOP support

“These tariffs were a self-inflicted political wound that alienated voters,” the organization wrote in a postelection memo."
He continued, "Some on the right now argue that Tuesday night’s election results ought to force the GOP to return to what Sen. John Curtis (R., Utah) described in a social-media post as “principled conservative values.”"

The journalist went on, "“After the Biden era, Americans wanted an economy that worked for them,” Curtis wrote on Tuesday night. “Instead, they received a hastily executed war, headline after headline of scandals, a ballooning $40 trillion debt, and unpredictable tariffs.”"

Earlier on Thursday, CNN's Kristen Holmes reported that in the White House itself, advisers variously blame the Iran War and the fact that Trump himself was not on the ballot for the losses. One thing they do not blame, though, is the president's own actions."

“Behind the scenes, we’ve seen an enormous amount of finger-pointing and blame-shifting,” Holmes told CNN anchor Jake Tapper. “In terms of the president himself, he has continued to say, and that includes behind closed doors, that he believes the reason Republicans lost was not a rebuke of him, but because, in fact, he was not actually on the ballot."

Holmes added, "And I do want to note one thing here, Jake. He keeps talking about the size of the rallies, saying, ‘I saw all these people, and they did not come out to vote for the candidate.' But I went to a number of these rallies, and I interviewed those voters, and they were people who were already going to vote Republican. So it’s unclear that that’s really what happened here, that they didn’t transfer the love over to the candidates.”

President Donald Trump's Republicans lost the 2026 midterm elections in a remarkable sweep for the Democrats — one made all the more fascinating, MS NOW anchor Nicolle Wallace pointed out on Thursday, because Republicans spent absolutely as much money as they legally and practically could.

“All of Elon Musk’s money didn’t move Talarico’s favorables down a point," Wallace told The Bulwark's Tim Miller. "Didn’t move Paxton’s up, right? Like, Elon Musk spent all of the money that he could pour into the cycle [roughly $200 million]. There was no limit. The number he spent wasn’t because that was all he was willing to spend, that was because that was all that there was to buy in terms of airtime and mailers and consultants that could burn through it.”

Miller mused in various ways on why he found Wallace's observation to be meaningful.

“He’s a trillionaire," Miller said of Musk, who is CEO of companies like Tesla and SpaceX. "He’s the richest guy in the world. He’s got this little fiefdom out by the airport now. They’re pushing data centers in the state. And then he has $200 million plus on TV trying to buy his own senator.”

The Bulwark pundit also said that he found a line Talarico used in his acceptance speech on Tuesday night to be particularly poignant and relevant.

“Texas is not for sale," Miller said. "You cannot come here, take our land, take our rights, and buy your own personal senator.”

Miller added, “The crowd reaction to that was really powerful.”

Despite burning at least one-fifth of a billion dollars to defeat Talarico, and reportedly a quarter-billion elsewhere, Musk does not seem to have voted himself.

"State and local records show that Musk did not vote for her—or anyone," The Daily Beast's Noah Kirsch reported on November, adding at the same time that Musk ''did vote during Flores' race in June, records show, and also previously cast an absentee ballot in the 2020 elections.''

Kirsch linterviewed Cameron County's election administrator that “based on our records, we do not have any indication that Mr. Musk participated in the November 2022 Election in Cameron County." The individual continued that ''Musk could not have voted in another county, since that would have triggered the cancellation of his initial registration."

Kirsch added that "an official in the Texas Secretary of State’s Office confirmed that Musk is only registered to vote in Cameron County, noting that any changes would show up in state databases. The office’s records also showed that Musk did not vote in the midterms."

In October, former President Bill Clinton's Labor Secretary Robert Reich described Musk — who said Reich should go to prison for criticizing him — "as a bully-in-chief in the Oval Office and the world’s wealthiest bully dictating American foreign policy — both of whom are now pumping hundreds of millions of dollars into our elections in order to avoid accountability."

President Donald Trump asked voters to vote like he was personally on the ballot on Tuesday, and he caught a resounding defeat. Now critics say the devastated president is having to deal with massive nationwide rejection, and conservative commentator and attorney George Conway says Trump is going to handle it badly.

“He’s gonna just check out,” said Conway, speaking to podcaster Jim Acosta on Thursday. “... Trump already look like he checked out yesterday while showing off his ballroom. And I think the guys just going to check out. He's going to do some crazy s—— that's probably impeachable by itself but mostly what he's going to do is check out.”

Seized by despondency, Trump will be worth absolutely nothing to anybody—not even his Republican allies, said Conway. To be anything more would require a man who thinks about more than himself.

“He's not going to do anything that's useful for anybody, even if he thought it would make him more popular, because he's mad,” said Conway. “He's mad at the American people. He's mad at the voters. He's mad at Republicans because they weren't good enough candidates for him and not enough of them [won].”

“He’s going to say ‘they left me here with [Democratic Sens.] Hakeem Jeffries and Jamie Raskin and Shifty [Adam] Schiff, and Chuck Schumer, and they're all up my a——. So, screw you all,’ he's going to say. He's a dangerous, crazy duck, and I think we're better off if he just checks out and works on his home improvement project. And I hope he does that.

Acosta suggested Trump might even leave the country, and Conway snapped that he hoped he would.

But while Trump is feeling morose, Conway suggested now would be the time for Democrats to send the president legislation that would make voters happy. And whatever Trump does with it would be a bonus.

“Just send sit his way,” he said. “Send him some legislation that would reduce the cost of living. Send him legislation that would revoke all his tariff authority. Send him a war powers resolution to stop the war [in Iran]. Send him all the anti-corruption stuff. Send him legislation requiring him to disclose all his crypto holdings and have a commission investigate it.”

Slamming the White House with popular and simple legislation like No President Can Trade Stocks, or Stop the Tariffs, or End the War, will also rope Republicans into supporting it.

“He can sign it, or he can veto it. But if he signs it they'll have it in law and they can hold his feet to the fire. Or if he vetoes it, they can say ‘hey, this man is in the way because he's checked out here and he's focused on gluing gold to his freaking mantle in the White House,” said Conway.

From there, Dems might even make arguments to impeach Trump for abandoning his duties.

“I don't think he makes it through the next two years, honestly,” said Conway. “I think he makes it through physically, but mentally or psychologically I don't think he's going to make it.”

But Trump won’t be the only Republican hijacked by depression, they said. Both Acosta and Conway believed ousted Republican lawmakers may have a difficult time showing up over the next few weeks themselves because of the humiliating size of their Tuesday defeat.

“[Speaker Mike] Johnson is going to have difficulty getting people to come back to Washington during the lame duck session,” said Conway. “They're going to say ‘why should I come back?’ All these people who basically had the s—— kicked out of them will say they can send somebody else to clean out their offices while they're out busy looking for jobs

Faced with an historic rout across the nation, ground-down MAGA politicians appear to be fleeing to the political wilds and extremist hardlands of the MAGAsphere, reports the Gothamist. And from there they are lobbing grenades back at their party.

“Anthony Constantino, one of the last of the state’s MAGA faithful left standing, delivered a scathing assessment of the state party after declaring victory in his North Country congressional race,” reports Gothamist. “His profane rant echoed what many are saying behind closed doors.”

“In NYS, the Republican Party is mostly a Con Job that helps Democrats win,” Constantino posted on X. “Even [failed GOP gubernatorial candidate] Bruce Blakeman was in on the con. He just wandered around like a headless chicken going from stupid dinner to stupid dinner and charming the ‘party’ while ignoring the people.”

Constantino is one of the few Republicans leading his Democratic opponent in the wake of a nationwide Republican slaughter Tuesday night. But he has not yet been declared the winner. Even before he secured victory, however, the Gothamist reports he was already trashing the Republican Party’s ineptitude, which he claimed had cost him a bigger victory in his deep-red district. Constantino complains that the state party opposed him and his right-wing extremism in the primary, but he narrowly won. The CEO said the party’s opposition forced him to fund his own campaign with $17 million of his own money.

The Gothamist reports that Constantino is not along. Many party critics now complain that the GOP has lost its way amid decades of dysfunction.

“The state hasn’t fielded a viable Republican candidate for New York City mayor in 25 years. The last time a Republican won statewide office was in 2002,” reports the Gothamist. “The party appeared poised for a comeback four years ago after a better-than-expected showing in the governor’s race and sweeping Long Island’s four congressional districts. But much of those gains were quickly lost.”

On Wednesday, outgoing Rep. Elise Stefanik, a Republican who abandoned her bid for governor late last year, told the New York Post that the Republican party should be "built from scratch" and she called Blakeman's bid "a low energy campaign with limited resources that lacked an apparatus.”

Blakeman hit back on X as tempers flared, calling Stefanik a "selfish, do nothing politician that didn’t lift a finger to help Republican candidates in New York this year."

But after the Tuesday beatdown, many Republicans are screaming for a rebuild before the party evaporates.

Former Republican congressmember Marc Molinaro, who served in the Trump administration, also called for a party revamp.

“I don't make it personal, but there needs to be change,” said Molinaro. “This was an a—— whipping. It just was.”

Zeteo reports that it did not take long for the largely silent class of megadonors and Trump administration helpers to get vocal with their blame game.

“Following their election night ‘bloodbath’ Tuesday, a wide array of prominent Republicans on Capitol Hill, within the Trump-Vance administration, and in the high-roller donor class are now ready to vent to us about how it is, quite simply, President Donald ‘Trump’s f—— fault,’ as one very [PO’d] GOP megadonor put it,” reported Zeteo writers Asawin Suebsaeng and Andrew Perez.

Almost everyone yelling at Zeteo reporters blamed their midterm massacre on Trump’s war on Iran, with most of them saying the war should never have been launched, reports Zeteo.

“They all blamed rising costs that their infallible god-emperor Trump helped jack up, having won in 2024 with his blatantly hollow campaign vows to bring them down,” said Suebsaeng. “But a significant number of these sources also blamed – though they will not dare do so publicly, either – Stephen Miller, Trump’s most important sidekick, at least when it comes to his domestic policy agenda.”

“He screwed us big time,” one longtime GOP operative who worked on competitive 2026 races said of Miller, Trump’s White House deputy chief of staff.

Miller oversees Trump’s federal immigrant crackdowns that led to the deaths of U.S. citizens in Minneapolis. And that particular consultant, and several other plugged-in national and battleground-state-based Republican sources, specifically accused the Trump’s mass-deportation sprees for caving the president’s poll numbers. Trump’s immigration policy unleashed a “tidal wave of lawlessness, state violence and terror, racial profiling, and the intimidation efforts against legal immigrants and U.S. citizens,” said Suebsaeng.

Both Trump and Vice President JD Vance have suggested Trump’s war for historic GOP losses, but sources and internal polling suggest Texas slipped through Republicans’ fingers largely because of slippage with Hispanic voters, exacerbated by the Trump administration’s relentless rounding-up of immigrants – “including the many people whose Trump-backing family and friends were convinced they would be spared by Trump and Miller’s mass-deportation and mass-detention regime.”

This, in tandem with Trump-style high prices, created a line of blue snuggled along Texas’ Mexican border.

Not everybody is hating on Trump’s tactics, of course. Democrats like Adam Hamilton, who won three southwest Kansas counties that Trump won by 30 and 40 points in 2024, praised Miller’s handiwork.

“Cannot understate Stephen Miller’s impact on tonight’s results,” said Tyson Brody, a campaign spokesperson for Hamilton, after the Methodist pastor won a Kansas Senate seat for Democrats for the first time since 1932.

But Miller’s not going anywhere, suspects Suebsaeng and sources.

“If there is bloodletting after this midterms bloodbath, expect him to remain unscathed. Such is the pact he has with Trump,” Suebsaeng wrote.