President Donald Trump blurted out an "extraordinary quote" this week that was a stunning admission, a political columnist said on Thursday.
In a new episode of "The Daily Blast" podcast from The New Republic, Greg Sargent described why Trump's statement during the Cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday — "I don't care about the midterms" — was so revealing, especially as the Republican Party has started to signal panic about the fall elections.
"In discussing what just happened in Texas, where the MAGA extremist will now be the GOP nominee in the Senate race, Trump accidentally revealed that he’s still under the delusion that he and MAGA are popular," Sargent said.
"Meanwhile, three different indicators in the polling contain terrible news for Trump and the GOP. And new reports say that Republicans are growing more alarmed about the midterms. Some of them are plainly afraid to say so. So how much longer can they stand by while Trump drags them down?"
Sargent described what Trump might actually think, despite fears among GOP leaders.
"I think this is quite literally true," Sargent said. "He doesn’t care what happens to Republicans, really. He really doesn’t give a s---. And it’s also true that Trump’s war is absolutely tanking their chances."
Sargent's guest on the podcast, The New Republic contributing editor Felipe De La Hoz, viewed Trump's comments as equivalent to throwing his allies under the bus.
"I think it could be interpreted as him saying that this is an indication of the strength of his brand, which I think is mistaken," De La Hoz said.
"We saw something similar play out in 2018 and 2022 with his MAGA candidates winning primaries and then getting slaughtered in the general," De La Hoz added.
Trump's endorsement of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton to challenge longtime Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn might have left him feeling more confident after Paxton's victory in the runoff in Texas on Tuesday. But it also gives Democrats a path to potentially flip the deep red state's Senate seat blue with candidate Rep. James Talarico (D-TX), which De La Hoz argued could be possible.
"I think in my lifetime — presuming that we maintain the same sort of electoral political system — I think that it’s entirely conceivable, and I would say even likely, that at some stage a Democrat will win a statewide race in Texas, just given the demographics, given what we’ve seen," De La Hoz said. "I don’t know if it’ll be Talarico, but it could be. I don’t think that this is a crazy pie-in-the-sky idea."
But it won't be easy for Democrats, Sargent argued.
"It’s going to be a big lift for Talarico to get there," Sargent said.
"It’s not impossible though. And even if he loses, he’s probably going to end up forcing Republicans to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to save Texas, which could impact the rest of the map. Just want to clarify though — Talarico could win. It’s possible, just very hard," Sargent added.