Are Republican candidates sick of Trump?

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

This is a Global Production.

Maria Salazar (0:05)

Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far. In July, 50% of the 50,000 people that were detained had no criminal record. Be careful what your advisors are telling you about immigration policies. The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today. You can be for immigration when Lincoln was for slavery and Reagan was for communism. I'm not talking about giving them amnesty. I'm talking about giving them a dignified life in this promised land. And only you can do that.

Emily Maitlis (0:35)

That is Maria Salazar. She is a Florida congresswoman for, wait for it, the Republican Party. And the reason her voice is getting so much attention right now is because she is perhaps the first to properly break ranks with Trump, with their Republican president, and call him out on immigration.

Jon Sopel (0:56)

Is the outlook now so dismal for the Republicans and for Donald Trump in the midterm elections that survival is no longer about sucking up to Donald Trump? It's about putting maximum distance.

Welcome to The News Agents USA.

SPEAKER_1 (1:13)

The News Agents USA with Emily Maitlis and Jon Sopel.

Jon Sopel (1:18)

It's Jon.

Emily Maitlis (1:19)

It's Maitlis.

Miles Taylor (1:20)

And it's Miles.

Jon Sopel (1:22)

And for how many years, Emily, have you been asking the question, when will it ever happen that Republicans will find a backbone and find a sense of sort of purpose and morality?

And I don't know whether it's happening that they've found morality and a sense of purpose. But it does look like they're breaking with the Trump show, probably out of an existential angst that unless they do, they're going to lose their little perches in the midterm elections that are coming up in a few weeks time.

Emily Maitlis (1:57)

It is interesting, isn't it? I think we can't distinguish the sort of end of Amoeba GOP with the oncoming November midterms, because you are starting to see backbones appear in very curious places. But the one thing that they all have in common is that they are about to fight a race of their lives.

They are starting, I think, to work out that rather than having Trump on the ballot, which is his favorite phrase, remember when he was supporting Darlene Graham, Lindsey Graham's sister, and he went down to South Carolina when she was fighting her primary and said, just imagine my name is on the ballot. Pretend I'm on the ballot. Pretend I'm on the ballot. Now, we are starting to see the signs. Let's go with caution, caveat, emptor because it might just end up being three people that we cite today and no more. But it feels like people are saying, pretend he's nothing to do with me. Pretend we are not Republican. I just want to take you to a couple of examples that we've had of that. You heard from Maria Salazar, really interesting that she's gone straight for the anti-ice message here. She knows as a Latino and Trump previously won over a much greater number of the Latino voters this time than before.

She knows that Latinos have been massively put off by essentially his ice agents going around cities like Minnesota herding up people of her culture as if they were cattle and trying to send them off to places.

Jon Sopel (3:38)

Well, she sounded like a Democrat in that ad.

It was indistinguishable. You thought that's a Democrat Congresswoman's ad. Then we thought, oh no, it's not, it's a Republican.

Emily Maitlis (3:48)

I mean, she doesn't say Trump your policy, she says your advisors. So there's this clever little place where she puts him up one as if to say, oh, I don't know if you know this, but your advisors have been going around making life hard for us and rounding up Latinos. But essentially, I feel like I've heard that clip that we played in about five places over the last couple of days because it feels like quite a moment, right? She is now breaking ranks and saying, this is not helping me. This is not helping me for your party get re-elected.

The other one I want to play you is Ashley Hinson, who is competing for an Iowa Senate seat. And she has lambasted the impact of Trump's war in Iran. And now she's gone one step further and she's basically offering to cross the divide. Just listen to her here.

Ashley Hinson (4:38)

I'm Ashley Hinson. Used to be that reaching across the aisle wasn't just okay. It was expected. Some people in Washington forgot that. I never have.