Trump's Errors Threaten GOP Senate Seats

 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.

The beef issue is a classic concentrated-losers/diffuse-gainers situation.  The GOP was in a similar bind in 1986 with oil prices.

Coming soon to a Democratic attack ad near you:

TRUMP: “We'll by Argentinian beef.”

Reporters:' What about the US farmers who are suffering?'

Trump: “Argentina is fighting for its life. Do you understand me? They’re dying.”

He says this as 77 American cattle producers are going out of business in the US per day.…

— ThePatrioticBlonde™🇺🇸 (@ImBreckWorsham) August 23, 2026

Trump has restarted a trade war with Canada.  Bad economics, bad politics.

David Frum at The Atlantic:

More than 30 percent of Ohio’s exports go to Canada, and almost 40 percent of Michigan’s. Both states will this year elect a U.S. senator and fill open governor’s seats. Not only is Trump putting at risk his party’s position in purple Michigan, but suddenly the races in beet-red Ohio look in jeopardy too. These states may turn control of the Senate—and Trump’s chances of facing meaningful accountability next year for his law-breaking and corruption.

Trump’s theory of his trade war, like his theory of his Iran war, is that the bigger bully always wins. Size counts for a lot, but not for everything.

As Trump has declared over and over again, his ultimate goal in this trade war is to add Canada as a 51st state. Why? To make the United States look bigger on the map. For that goal, which excites ultra-MAGA crackpots, Trump is hazarding not only America’s most important trading relationships but very possibly every other political equity he holds, including avoiding investigations and accountability by a Democratic House and Senate after January 2027

GOP's Beef with Trump

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.

The beef issue is a classic concentrated-losers/diffuse-gainers situation.  The GOP was in a similar bind in 1986 with oil prices.

Grace Yarrow at POLITICO:

President Donald Trump’s latest effort to lower beef prices ahead of November’s midterms has rattled cattle markets, infuriated beef industry groups and alienated some conservatives. And it’s not clear the move will pay off at the meat counter.

Trump said Friday that he plans to remove duties on 300,000 metric tons of imported beef, which he said suppliers have agreed to sell at a 25 percent discount that will be passed on to consumers. He’s set to sign an executive order to that effect within the next two weeks, according to a White House official who was granted anonymity to discuss the plans.

But growing backlash to Trump’s beef import plan illustrates the stakes of a White House political gamble to confront high food prices that threaten Republicans at the ballot box, despite the risk of sparking industry resistance that has previously derailed similar plans.

Many of Trump’s supporters cite the cost of living as the biggest failure of the president’s second term. Yet many ranchers and Republicans argue boosting imports from foreign countries won’t tangibly lower beef prices in the short term — raising the prospect that Trump’s still-pending order could alienate ranchers without delivering noticeable relief to voters.

“You don’t put America first by putting U.S. cattle producers last,” said Justin Tupper, president of the United States Cattlemen’s Association, in a statement after Trump’s announcement.

The increased imports will last 90 days — just through November’s midterm elections.

...

“This is Donald Trump in purgatory,” said one ag industry representative who was granted anonymity to candidly discuss the plan. “He’s trading his long-term strategy for a short-term sugar fix, and it’s not going to do enough to alter the price of beef or any other higher elevated costs in the economy to help them in the election. It’s going to just piss off farmers and ranchers.”

It’s not the first time Trump has been caught between pleasing ranchers, a loyal GOP constituency, and addressing affordability. But the price of a summertime hamburger has continued to climb: Ground beef cost close to $7 a pound on average last month. Prices have skyrocketed due to high demand and a decades-low cattle inventory diminished by severe weather, industry consolidation and high operating costs.

Harping on Natalie

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments. 

 Jonathan Lemire at The Atlantic:

You are reading this story only because the White House didn’t want you to.

I’ll explain. This past Sunday, Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia—who has become quite good at delivering viral campaign sound bites, slickly filmed by multiple cameras—unleashed a blistering indictment of President Trump’s leadership. Ossoff, a former documentary filmmaker who is generating 2028 buzz, denounced Trump’s handling of the Iran war this way: “While he fruitlessly drains our munitions and oil reserves, the president sleeps through his meetings. He golfs and trades stocks. See, he doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.”

It was a pithy and well-structured attack, but not so different from the broadsides delivered daily by Democrats on the campaign trail or on MS NOW. But one new word stood out: Natalie.

The line got a knowing laugh from a handful of observers in the room, and it electrified a subset of political obsessives on social media, who took to their favorite platforms and group chats with some version of “Oh, he went there!” or “I can’t believe he did that!” But although Ossoff’s aside resonated with the junkies, the majority of Americans likely had no idea who this Natalie woman was, and might never have given it another thought.

But then the West Wing lost its mind. And Trump did too. Their pushback was so overwhelming, so obviously coordinated, so ugly and personal that it became a story. The White House inadvertently created news, as well as a permission structure for even the most cautious, fact-based media organizations to take on the topic. Which is why the name Natalie Harp is now everywhere.

And the resulting stories have not benefited the Trump White House.

 

SCOOP: Trump aide Natalie Harp worked at White House without security clearance for a year

Both people said Harp’s reasoning for failing to complete the process was unknown. After concerns mounted among the White House counsel’s office and security officials, the president…

— Jake Traylor (@jake__traylor) August 19, 2026

Maggie Haberman shares new details about Trump aide Natalie Harp and her rise inside the White House: “She is a channel by which… foreign leaders try to reach him.” pic.twitter.com/ggzoV0DPk2

— Erin Burnett OutFront (@OutFrontCNN) August 20, 2026

Debt

Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. The first year of the second Trump administration has been full of ominous developments. 

War and economic woes will hurt the GOP in November.  The only question is how much.

Alan Rappeport at NYT:

America’s gross national debt topped $40 trillion for the first time on Wednesday, an ominous milestone for an economy that sits on a shaky fiscal foundation after decades of borrowing to pay for the rising costs of the military, social safety net programs and President Trump’s tax cuts.

This year alone, the United States is on track to borrow more than $2 trillion to help pay for its obligations, including spending on the war in Iran and the sweeping tax cuts that Republicans enacted in 2025. Soaring interest payments to investors who have purchased America’s debt now make up about half of that red ink, pushing the United States into a deeper financial hole.

National debt as a percentage of G.D.P.

I'm really struggling between trumpeting this new $40 trillion total debt threshold, versus pointing out that debt held by the public - which is economically the more relevant figure - is $32.3 trillion. Which is really bad, but not a media-friendly round number. https://t.co/LzSS0TlpW8

— Jessica Riedl 🧀 🇺🇦 (@JessicaBRiedl) August 19, 2026