President Donald Trump's desperate bid to salvage the midterms with bribes and goodies got a withering response on CNN's Table for Five, with the panel likening him to a third grader running for class president, making wild "pie in the sky" promises to win.
On Saturday, the latest edition of the CNN panel show opened with host Abby Phillip detailing the many promises Trump has tried to entice voters with in recent weeks, amid persistent polling that shows the GOP is heading for a major wipeout against Democrats in the midterms. This included his claim that every American adult would receive $5,000 if Republicans won the House and Senate, or that he would help pass a new bill to allow the sale of certain fuel blends year-round.
Phillip, in her appraisal of the tactic, likened Trump to a desperate child.
"Remember the kid in third grade who made wild promises if he became student government president?" Phillip said. "Chocolate milk in the water fountains, no more homework, pizza Fridays every day. Well, with just ten days to go until the midterms, Donald Trump is wandering the halls delivering a pie in the sky. The president is making a laundry list of promises to voters, but most of them are coming with a catch: his party has to win."
Following a supercut of Trump's recent promises, Phillip further explained how this plan "rings hollow," given both how expensive something like the $5,000 check plan would be, and how many of his similar promises in the past, including dividend checks for all American adults based on supposed tariff revenue and DOGE cuts.
Another panel member, the former Trump staffer Alyssa Farrah Griffin, argued that it was much too late in the midterm game for these sorts of promises to have any hope of impacting voters.
"It feels like a little too late to be doing any kind of handouts at this point," she explained. "Listen, how people feel about the economy is baked in at this point. The price of gas, inflation, low jobs. We've just had a revision of the jobs report that was pretty abysmal for the last quarter. That's not where you want to be heading into the midterms. So you do kind of have to come up with these free giveaways. There's not really another message to proactively sell... And I think while people do appreciate relief, I think that they do, frankly, see it as sort of a bribe for their vote."
Another panel member, California Democratic Rep. Katie Porter, argued that Trump is planning on not having to make good on these promises.
"But I think this helps him in the sense that afterwards, when Democrats win, he can be like, 'Well, see, I know you can't make ends meet, but if we won the House, I would have given you $5,000,'" the congresswoman argued. "'I know we're not giving you anything for your, you know, being a victim of water, poisoned water. But, you know, if we voted differently.' So to me, he's throwing these things out here knowing full well that he's not going to have to deliver on them, because Republicans are very unlikely to win the House. And he's saying, you've got to win the House, you got to win the Senate. Like, I don't think they're going to win either, but I think he's letting himself say, 'Now, see, I offered you these things and you, the American people,' he's shifting blame onto the American people for why they're not going to get these things."
