Trump's slurs 'throwing gasoline' on intensifying midterm 'fire': GOP analyst

President Donald Trump’s increasingly inflammatory rhetoric could backfire on Republicans just days before the midterm elections, conservative political commentator Jonah Goldberg warned Thursday.

During a CNN panel discussion, host Kasie Hunt questioned Trump’s recent string of insults and slurs, asking whether his approach was helping Republicans with just five days left before Election Day.

“It is a strange theory that he has gotten that somehow just making himself the center of attention without actually making a lot of actual closing arguments other than hurling around some insults is good,” Goldberg said.

Goldberg, the editor-in-chief of the conservative outlet The Dispatch, argued that Trump’s approach could be doing more harm than good among voters outside his MAGA base.

“For every one base voter that is being turned out, and I'm suspicious about how many, it feels like it is pushing at least two or three independents the other way,” Goldberg said Thursday.

The political analyst also suggested that Trump was making an already difficult political environment worse, noting that the president’s party historically struggles in midterm elections.

“It just feels like Trump is throwing gasoline on the fire, rather than actually trying to put any of it out,” Goldberg said.

Brian Lanza, a former adviser to Trump’s 2024 campaign, acknowledged that the president’s approach could carry a political cost.

“He probably does gain some votes,” Lanza said. “But independents are likely going to be turned off by this.”