'More anxious': Republicans in panic mode after Trump's lackluster address backfires
Republicans were shocked by President Donald Trump's finger-pointing and have questioned what's next after his lackluster primetime speech.
White House insiders and GOP lawmakers were reacting to responses to Trump's speech, CNN senior White House correspondent Kristen Holmes told viewers Thursday.
"Look, they're all watching everything closely, and they've seen how it's been reviewed. I will say one thing. The White House worked together as a team, as they often do the inner circle to craft this speech. And they needed a speech in which President Trump would stay on message, that was short, that addressed the economy," Holmes said.
Trump blamed former President Joe Biden, a common move he's made in the past — something his team has begged him to stop doing — and tried to say the economy was better than before.
"Now, whether or not you think his message was true, we obviously know that there were numbers that were inflated or just plain wrong. Or if you think that he went off topic, airing his grievances, he did talk about the economy more than we've ever we've seen him in the last several months," Holmes said. "And that is what the White House was intending to do, to try and get the message across that he is aware that things are not in the place that they need to be, and that they are working on it as an administration."
That message did not land well, she said. And Republicans outside the White House had a different response to what the White House had aimed for, "which is try and alleviate people's fears."
Instead, it only ramped up people's worries, especially ahead of the midterms.
"Republicans came out of that speech more anxious that the messaging around the economy was not where it should be going into 2026, and that the party as a whole was not really solidified in that messaging about the economy, especially when it came to all of this blame on the previous administration," Holmes said.
Trump's former campaign advisers have claimed that the president has previously made gains in convincing people he has an understanding of improving the economy. But now things have changed.
"The other thing they said was that it was a lot easier to run when President Trump himself wasn't in power. When you are running against something, you were saying, you can change something," she added. "Now he is facing the same exact circumstances that President Biden was facing at the time, and handling it the exact same way, which, of course, is raising a lot of questions as to where Republicans are going to go from here."