Why GOP Candidates Are Ignoring Trump

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Mike Warren (1:03)

Welcome to The Dispatch Podcast. I'm Mike Warren. On today's roundtable, we'll be returning to the upcoming midterm elections and discuss why Republican candidates appear to be ignoring President Trump's advice on how to run their campaigns. They're not making the election about him, and they're certainly not promoting his $5,000 dividend. Then we briefly look at the race in Michigan and ask why Vice President Vance is telling House Republicans to, quote, just talk about Abdul El-Sayed, unquote. And finally, not worth your time, demolishing the Kennedy Center. I'm joined today by Dispatch Editor-in-Chief Jonah Goldberg, National Correspondent Kevin Williamson, and Dispatch Contributor Megan McArdle.

Let's dive in.

All right, we are recording on Thursday, September 17th, which means there are 47 days left until election day. And there are a number of indications coming in here in these final weeks that the election might be very, very bad for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. But I want to start actually with a Washington Post article that caught my attention, and just deep dive into this a little bit. Last week in Dallas, I was there covering the Not a Convention convention in Dallas. We heard from Donald Trump, this election is going to be about me. He talked about the $5,000 payout to every American adult if Republicans hold Congress in the midterm elections. It's very clear that the president wants Republicans to make this midterm election about him. Which, you know, you can hear Democrats say, we know, we want to do that too. And what I found interesting was this Washington Post article, GOP candidates are largely ignoring Trump's midterm advice. Essentially, nobody is talking about Trump. If you are a Republican candidate for House or Senate, the Post has done this analysis, has found that the number of references to Trump has dropped among Republicans. But interestingly, also Democrats, which I think could be a whole other conversation.

But not only are Republicans not talking about the president and the leader of their party, they are basically trying to avoid talking about the messages. He wants to talk about Save America Act, now this new $5,000 check proposal.

And it just got me thinking that it does seem that Republicans are perhaps simply engaging in a very old kind of political move here, which is you have an unpopular president, you're the incumbent party. The way to go about this is to run away from that unpopular president. It is almost an iron law of politics that you run away from the unpopular incumbent leader of your party. So is that what's going on? Or are we seeing something a little deeper? Are Republican candidates, Republican members of Congress, and others in the party starting to look at Trump in the rear view mirror? He's just about to be a lame duck president, and the party is trying to move on in fits and starts. Are we at long last seeing that? Jonah, let me start with you. What's your take on why Republicans aren't taking up Trump's message here and running with it? What's going on?

Jonah Goldberg (4:35)

Well, when you ask, is the party moving on, I get what you mean when you say the party. You mean the members of the party who are running for office?

Mike Warren (4:43)

Correct.

Jonah Goldberg (4:43)

But there's also the actual organization of the Republican Party, and it is not moving on.

Mike Warren (4:48)

That's fair.

Jonah Goldberg (4:48)

It is simply an extension of Donald Trump's personal household and estate, as it were. But yeah, I think the problem with that, there were many problems with that fake convention, and I'm going to insist on calling it a fake convention because it did no party business whatsoever. But the message that came out of it was just the $5,000 gimmick thing. And the Republicans don't want to talk about that, right? So like that whole thing was set up for them to have some messaging coming out of the convention, and Trump stepped on his own messaging, as it were. And I actually think it's more interesting that the Democrats aren't talking as much about Trump, maybe they feel like they just, they don't have to. I will say, I'm willing to defend the $5,000 thing a little bit, in so far, I mean, it's horrible policy, don't get me wrong. But the only people inclined to believe that that's possible, that this will happen, are precisely the voters Trump needs to turn out.