The Wall Street Journal's editorial board tore into President Donald Trump and GOP leaders over an election-year gambit it predicts will backfire.
In an editorial published on Tuesday, the conservative board blasted what it called "the party's panicky rush to ban diesel exports," warning that the idea "reveals their electoral trouble" only weeks before the midterms.
"Republicans are watching the polls with increasing dismay as their midterm prospects worsen," the board wrote. "Alas, their response is to compound the disarray with policy mistakes that won't help the economy or their political prospects."
The board pointed to remarks Trump made on Tuesday.
"I've said let's not send out the diesel," Trump said. "We make a lot of diesel."
The board argued a ban would raise prices rather than lower them, however.
"A ban on exports would increase global diesel prices, which would smack Americans living in coastal areas that rely on imports," it wrote. "Diesel would pile up in Gulf Coast storage, prompting refineries to reduce run rates. That would lower the production of gasoline and jet fuel, whose prices would rise."
The editorial suggested Republicans hunting for distance from Trump pick a different target. "If GOP candidates want to separate themselves from Mr. Trump on an unpopular policy, they could criticize his tariffs," the board wrote.
The editorial cited polling showing Democrats leading Senate races in Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, North Carolina, Maine, Alaska and Texas, with Kansas and Nebraska also in play. "Republicans could lose as many as eight Senate seats," the board warned.
"Mr. Trump won most of these states by double digits in 2024," the editorial noted. "Yet his approval rating has collapsed in the heartland as in the rest of the country, especially among independents. So it's understandable that Republicans are trying to differentiate themselves from the President. The problem is they are compromising core conservative principles."
The board singled out Michigan GOP Senate nominee Mike Rogers, who broke with the administration on Monday. "The war with Iran needs to end and end quickly," Rogers said in a video. Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA), who is running for a Senate seat, joined the call. "Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn't have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran," Hinson said.
The board, however, bluntly warned that the GOP candidates will have to do more than distance themselves from Trump.
"The broader problem is that Republicans lack a policy agenda to run on," it wrote. "They're finding out the hard way what a mistake that is."
