Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics.
War and economic woes will hurt the GOP in November. The only question is how much.
Megan Messerly, Myah Ward and Alex Gangitano at POLITICO:
Energy Secretary Chris Wright visited New Hampshire last week to tout natural gas pipelines and got hit with questions about $4 gasoline prices. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was in Iowa over the weekend ostensibly to rally farmers and instead had to defend Trump’s decision to import foreign beef, which sparked outcry among cattle ranchers.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in Florida to talk about school nutrition, faced questions about a Pennsylvania measles outbreak and ended up in a protracted fight with Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro over whether the virus is responsible for two deaths.
Even Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a veteran of Wall Street, is struggling to win over some of his former colleagues, who are skeptical of his “economic D-Day” plan to end the Iran war and downright hostile to his attempt to lower the interest rate the federal government pays on long-term debt.
The Cabinet kerfuffle comes at a time when the president’s envoys are needed most. The midterms are less than three months away, the president’s approval rating is near record-lows and the White House is on a mission to remind voters of all it believes it has accomplished in the last two years, including a spate of tax cuts, improved border security and reductions in violent crime.
