Trump's new 'secret weapon' to 'salvage midterms' already tanked: expert
President Donald Trump's new plan to salvage the midterm elections has already collapsed, according to a political analyst.
Legal expert Michael Popok outlined how Trump's attempt to draft in James Blair, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, has already gone wrong. A recent meeting at the Waldorf Astoria leaked, revealing that just a day before Virginia voted to redistrict in favor of the Democratic Party, Trump's team believed there was nothing to worry about.
Virginia Democrats achieved a major victory in April 2026 when voters approved an aggressive redistricting measure designed to gain four additional House seats. The ballot measure passed with approximately 51% support, or more than 1.5 million voters, fundamentally reshaping the state's congressional landscape.
The new map favors Democrats in 10 of 11 districts, representing a strategic counteroffensive against Republican gerrymandering in Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina orchestrated at Trump's direction.
Speaking during an upload of Legal AF, Popok said, "Even Donald Trump's secret weapon, James Blair, the former White House deputy chief of staff and now moving over to head of political operations, even he can't salvage this mess, this special brand of stupid that Donald Trump is displaying between Iran and the attempt to try to redo all the congressional maps to give the Republicans an advantage.
"You put those two giant headwinds together, and it goes from a smoldering belief among the Republicans that they can't win to a five-alarm fire, and now we've got leaks. Yes, this is the leakiest administration we've ever had. It's as undisciplined as the occupant of the Oval Office.
"And we have a new leak about a meeting that happened in the last couple of days at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, the District of Columbia, headed by James Blair and Chris Lassevita to bring together all of Donald Trump's political operatives in one place and talk about how to salvage the midterms. Good luck.
"Nothing says I believe I'm going to lose in a slaughter at the midterm election like having to spend time trying to figure out how to do a mole hunt to figure out who did the leak.
"James Blair came up with this great idea that they were going to try to redistrict all over America, all the red states, and create new red congressional districts. How's that gone? Not well.
"Virginia, which on Tuesday voted by three or four points to redo its maps right now and gain a +4 to +5 advantage, will wipe out all of the gains from all of the redistricting that James Blair led in one fell swoop."