President Donald Trump's closing message to voters ahead of the 2026 midterms floored one analyst Monday.
Over the last couple of days, Trump has fielded seemingly softball questions from reporters about why voters should support Republicans in the midterms, only for Trump to change the subject to something few voters care about, according to David Pakman, host of the liberal "David Pakman Show" on YouTube. Trump gave another example on Monday when he held a small "rally" at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool, where he spent the first 20 minutes talking about landscaping.
"There is something almost impressively disconnected about how, as Trump, you've got the biggest microphone in American politics, the bully pulpit. You can pick the subject. You can tell the country exactly what you want this election to be about. And what you do is you say, 'Pretend I'm on the ballot and come look at my beautiful water,'" Pakman said.
Trump just recently wrapped up a 30-day midterm tour, where he held rallies in several red states in hopes of gaining voter support. Those rallies were held at a time when some Republican candidates have publicly distanced themselves from the president because of his sinking approval rating.
Pakman also noted that Trump seemed unwilling to do the job of a president when he admitted there is a "concept" of a trade plan brewing between the U.S. and Canada, which have been in an economic dispute throughout Trump's second term.
"The distance between the performance of being the president and the work of being the president is insane, and Trump has never been interested in the actual work of being president," Pakman said.