U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he makes an impression of a transgender weightlifter during his address to House Republicans at the Kennedy Center, January 6, 2026. REUTERS Kevin Lamarque
New York Times columnists Michelle Cottle, Jamelle Bouie and James French could not fathom why “serious” Republicans would involve themselves in national GOP races with the current administration in charge of the party.
Columnist Jamelle Bouie said there was no shortage of Republican contenders who represent President Donald Trump’s “fundamentalist” brand of “grievance and disinterest in governing,” but the one’s who are rising in Trump’s wake appear to be just as much of an uninspiring mess on the national level as Trump.
“If I could get Republicans who just cared about managing the government in a competent way, that would fill me with optimism,” said Bouie, “but like, there’s no indication that that’s a priority for Republican voters.”
French said there are actually competent GOP personalities running things on the state level.
“Let me stick up a little bit for some Republican voters here. I think, at the state level, you still will see something that our colleague Nick Kristof has written about multiple times, and rightfully so — the Mississippi miracle in reading, for example, has been a product of state-level Republican innovation. You know, Brian Kemp governs like a serious person. He has done a lot of things in Georgia that are serious governing things.”
But “the national party is a joke at this point. I mean, it’s absurd. It’s like watching WrestleMania sometimes. It’s just absurd,” French continued. “But I will say, at state after state across the country, there are still serious people doing serious things, and I look forward to the day, hopefully, when those serious people, who have been doing serious things, actually become part of the national conversation.”
Cottle said the very nature of modern politics discourages serious people from even dipping a toe in the water, however, which leaves a swimming pool filled with clowns.
“[T]eam sports in politics in Washington has just made it such that it’s not about governing or about competence so much. And I’m always like, if you’re a governor, you’ve got a better story. You tend to have a better record of getting stuff done. You actually have to deliver for your constituents,” Cottle said. “But that’s on both teams, so you know.”
Under the Republican party’s current stormy conditions, however, with terrible polls and mass voter animosity, Bouie strongly suggested serious candidates keep far away, at least for now.
“I agree with David that Brian Kemp is probably the single best in terms of ‘can this guy win a general election’ — like, unquestionably,” said Bouie. “If I were Brian Kemp and I thought 2028 was going to look anything like this year, I’d sit it out. Let Vance and Marco Rubio get the poison chalice and go down in fire, and then I come back in four years, as this emissary from the pre-Trump G.O.P.”
