The Republican Party is turning on Donald Trump once more after the president's national address.
A GOP insider believes there is one issue Trump "can't happy talk his way out of" as political analysts highlight the woeful cost of living crisis. The unnamed insider, speaking to CNN, is said to be advising on several midterm races and the cost of living crisis will likely be a hot topic for voters next year.
They said, "The president can’t happy talk his way out of what people feel. The White House staff around the president know what the message needs to be, and I wish that the president would listen."
Trump has said numerous times the affordability crisis is a "hoax" but GOP insiders are urging the president to reconsider his position on the economy. A Republican Party member who served in the first Trump administration told Politico the "execution was abysmal" for the president's comments in the national address.
They said, "It’s the right idea to talk about the economy more, but the execution was abysmal. He’s a very effective salesman when his heart is in it or when he’s on the attack. But the ‘I feel your pain’ speech — he just doesn’t have that club in his bag."
A Trump adviser has since suggested it will "take some time to turn things around" with the economy, and that the White House are doing their best to keep the president focused.
They said, "They’re trying to keep him focused, and they’re trying to get back on message. It’s going to take some time to turn things around. … But we’ve got to get the advantage back on affordability issues."
Trump was roundly criticised for his national address, with even the MAGA faithful considering the speech a waste of time. Other political commentators from across the political spectrum suggested Trump had lost the magic that made him president.
Ex-GOP strategist Rick Wilson suggested the speech was more of a "deep scream of outright panic" from the president than anything else.
He wrote, "His old, hypnotic MAGA mojo was gone, leaving only a desperate, ranting old man trying for one last time to inspire the old magic. It failed, utterly."
In a video to go along with the Substack piece, Wilson added, "He can't figure out how to pull himself out of the polling slump where he now has an approval rating of 38%, that is a screaming, flaming, white hot stinking disaster. In the space of a 20-minute scream-a-thon, every single one of the greatest hits of 2024, threw it against the wall. Guess what? None of it was convincing. Not a single bit of it was selling."