Source: Politics<\/p>\n
President Donald Trump’s decision to name hard-line loyalist Stephen Miller as his top aide cemented what many Republicans were already privately fearing: There will be no party-wide GOP reckoning with this week’s midterm bloodbath.<\/p>\n
Instead, with Trump still in office for another two years, most have grown resigned to the reality that the president is going to lean in on a confrontational approach with Congress \u2014 and is not willing to change course.<\/p>\n
Republicans on Capitol Hill and inside the Trump administration are questioning how and whether they can break with the president now after having green-lit much of his agenda, according to more than a dozen GOP lawmakers, senior aides and Trump officials interviewed for this story, some of whom were granted anonymity to speak candidly about the party\u2019s future.<\/p>\n
Trump’s decision Friday to elevate Miller, the architect of his unpopular mass deportation policy and an advocate of fierce partisan confrontation, crystallized the frustration.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere needs to be some self-reflection for Republicans,\u201d Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.) said in an interview about the midterm losses Friday morning. \u201cThere should be some heads rolling at the White House because we lost badly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Hours later, heads did roll. Trump announced Miller would replace Susie Wiles<\/a> as his new chief of staff.<\/p>\n \u201cHorrible decision,\u201d Stutzman said in response.<\/p>\n One House Republican, when informed that Trump had named Miller his chief of staff, replied: \u201cPlease tell me you\u2019re lying to me right now, just to get a reaction.\u201d<\/p>\n The immediate aftermath of the election has sharpened the GOP\u2019s core issue for the past decade: They are struggling to navigate the man who they reshaped their entire identity around, and whose record low approval with voters helped to fuel generational losses within the party.<\/p>\n The Iran war is another area where some Republicans are having regrets. Vice President JD Vance identified it as the main reason<\/a> for the party\u2019s defeat in his election post-mortem.<\/p>\n The problem with Vance\u2019s assessment, one senior Hill Republican said, is, \u201cwe\u2019ve been fucking voting for the war since March \u2014 because they told us to.\u201d<\/p>\n Republicans and Trump advisers expect the president to wield massive influence in the 2028 GOP primaries, another reason many are staying quiet.<\/p>\n “Everyone is staring at each other and wondering who will speak up and blame Trump first,” said one GOP operative who worked on a battleground race Democrats won. They, like others in this article, were granted anonymity to speak candidly. “But we’ve been here before. I’m not holding my breath. He still controls the party and its primaries, at least for now.”\u00a0<\/p>\n The White House responded to POLITICO’s request for comment by referring to Trump’s praise for Miller on Friday. The RNC declined to comment.<\/p>\n Miller wrote on social media<\/a> that he is “honored beyond words to serve as [Trump’s] White House Chief of Staff” and “the mission now is more clear than ever: Fight with all of our soul to support our President.”<\/p>\n How much lawmakers will distance themselves will be put to the test quickly: House Republicans will have an immediate opportunity to break with Trump and the war next week, when Rep. Thomas Massie said in an interview with POLITICO he will trigger his articles of impeachment<\/a> against Secretary Pete Hegseth. \u201cThere are a lot of questions about Hegseth,\u201d House Oversight Chair James Comer (R-Ky.) said<\/a> Friday.<\/p>\n Some senior Republicans are privately nudging Trump officials to ditch Hegseth before the vote, according to two people with direct knowledge of the conversations. The White House is sticking by Hegseth so far, however.<\/p>\n House Republicans will also have a chance to elect new leadership next week, including a new chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee. But in a sign of what\u2019s to come, none of the candidates \u2014 including Reps. Brian Jack (R-Ga.) and Rudy Yakym (R-Ind.) \u2014 nor any other GOP leadership candidates have publicly suggested doing more to break with Trump.<\/p>\n A small group of Republicans on Capitol Hill have privately declared, as of Tuesday night, that \u201cMAGA is over,\u201d and it\u2019s time for a \u201creset,\u201d as one House GOP aide put it \u2014 and yet it\u2019s a sentiment no prominent Republican is willing to say publicly.<\/p>\n Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), one of the longest-serving members of the House, said he wasn\u2019t going to \u201cblame\u201d others for Tuesday\u2019s losses, which left him as the sole GOP incumbent survivor in his home state. Asked if Republicans were dragged down by the president, Smith replied: \u201cI don\u2019t want to answer that.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Warren Davidson (R-Ohio) went a step further. He declined to name Trump, but he said in an interview that he was tired of GOP leaders \u201cignoring\u201d voters \u2014 a remarkable position for a party that Trump transformed into a working-class coalition.<\/p>\n “We had a lot of Republican leaders out there saying \u2018everything’s fine.\u2019 And you kind of had the boomer generation saying, ‘Well, yeah, back in my day, interest rates were 15%, so everything’s good,\u2019\u201d said Davidson, a 56-year-old former Army Ranger. \u201cWell, you had a lot of hardworking young people who felt really ignored, and they they went to the polls and said, ‘Stop ignoring us.'”<\/p>\n Davidson said Republicans need to start discussing their problems quickly, or suffer the electoral consequences again.<\/p>\n “Bad news doesn’t get better with time. So avoiding talking about something doesn’t solve the problem,” he said. He said Vance \u201cwalked a pretty good line\u201d by being \u201ccandid\u201d in his election post-mortem Wednesday.<\/p>\n Vance and other potential 2028 presidential contenders like Sen. Ted Cruz don\u2019t have much time to waste if they want to chart a new path away from Trump. Cruz issued his own post-mortem<\/a> that included a call to focus more on voters\u2019 economic concerns. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said<\/a> \u201cthis midterm was a rebuke of the president and Congress.\u201d<\/p>\n French Hill, the powerful Financial Services Committee Chair who narrowly survived a strong Democratic challenge in his own deep-red Arkansas seat Tuesday night, pointed<\/a> to \u201cPresident Trump\u2019s unfavorability\u201d which hit \u201craces across the country.\u201d Hill added: \u201cHe will be considered a lame duck, and that often has members of both political parties looking out at who will be the standard-bearers in the 2028 presidential election.\u201d<\/p>\n Most others have remained silent in public.<\/p>\n One thing is certain: The utter devastation in deep-red seats is stirring deep anger among many Hill Republicans, who believe something needs to change.<\/p>\n It\u2019s fueling private recriminations at Trump\u2019s political operation that his advisers didn\u2019t take early warnings seriously about the extent of the damage in states like North Carolina. Trump\u2019s now-former chief of staff Susie Wiles will join his political operation, the president announced Friday.<\/p>\n Trump’s team has blamed “candidate quality” for the losses, instead of the president himself.<\/p>\n \u201cCandidate quality matters. Unless you\u2019re running for the U.S. Senate. They apparently don\u2019t care if you would lose to a pinecone,\u201d said a House Republican, referring to Trump’s hand-picked North Carolina Senate nominee Michael Whatley.<\/p>\n The National Republican Senatorial Committee declined to comment.<\/p>\n Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), who leads the Senate campaign arm and saw Democrats flip a Senate seat in his own state, did not answer reporters\u2019 questions on Thursday. The South Carolina Republican has a policy of not talking to reporters in the halls \u2014 and he didn\u2019t start when POLITICO and others asked why Republicans lost so badly.<\/p>\n Back in August, some Republicans in seats Trump won by double digits were already telling<\/a> the White House to keep the president away from their districts. Others publicly broke from the White House on mass deportations and the Iran war.<\/p>\n NRCC Chair Richard Hudson had largely dismissed those concerns when POLITICO asked him in a hallway interview on Sept. 1.<\/p>\n \u201cBased on our polling, the president’s a net positive in every district. And I’ve been encouraging him to get out and do events and do rallies. I’m going to continue to do that,\u201d Hudson said. \u201cI think the more he talks about his record and incredible achievements he’s made over the last Congress, I think the better.\u201d<\/p>\n