The midterms are over. Now, as Donald Trump accepts defeat, the blame game begins
Donald Trump famously hates losing and never admits to being wrong. So it was no surprise on Tuesday night when he started casting around for scapegoats after his party’s crushing defeat in the midterms, blaming everyone from lacklustre GOP candidates to Fox News.
No one was expecting introspection from a man who once said that he didn’t apologise because he never made mistakes. But concern is growing in his own circle – and more broadly – that he will move beyond name-calling on Truth Social to a more concerted campaign of vengeance. Since early in his career as a real estate mogul and throughout his political ascent, Trump has operated under the assumption that the best line of defence is attack, attack, attack. And with a Democratic Party majority in both houses of Congress, he can expect two years of relentless attempts to curtail his power and hold him to account. The question is now: who will Trump lunge at first?
Fears that Trump would cast doubt on the results were unfounded. The sheer scale of the win – with the Democrats flipping seven Senate seats and at least 25 seats in the House of Representatives – makes it harder for him to cry foul. Instead he was quick to say that he would accept the outcome. Much of the quaking, therefore, will be taking place inside the White House. Disastrous midterms often prompt a cabinet reshuffle and US media have been reporting an atmosphere of foreboding and infighting within the administration as people try to save their skins. Given that the conflict with Iran and resulting hike in fuel prices have been widely blamed for the severity of the loss, one potential target could be secretary of war Pete Hegseth. Attention might also shift to Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, though the White House has denied that she could be on the chopping block.
A lot will also depend on the Democrats’ own desire for vengeance. During Trump’s first term, after the Democrats won back control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms, the party launched impeachment proceedings against the president the following year. Those attempts were unsuccessful and it is now understood that the move might have inadvertently bolstered Trump’s long-term support, allowing him to lean into the persecution narrative. The Democrats have therefore been cooler on the idea of impeaching Trump this time around. They could, however, attack other figures close to the president, including Hegseth. Especially since the alleged personal enrichment of Trump’s allies was a key theme in many of the Democratic candidates’ winning campaigns, other congressional investigations could target the president’s friends and family.
Trump appears to be aware that his inner circle will inevitably be in the firing line. “They’ll probably go after me and I’ll go after them,” Trump told Time magazine last month, when he also declined to rule out deploying the military or invoking the Insurrection Act after the midterms. While the latter two options look unlikely, Trump has shown a willingness to use the Justice Department to pursue personal vendettas. He could instruct its lawyers to investigate Democrats who launch congressional probes into his actions as commander in chief. We should not expect much bipartisan spirit, either: Trump has already promised to veto Democratic legislation that lands on his desk.
All-out war on the home front is a possibility but what about overseas? With his domestic powers stymied, the president could go all in on foreign interventions. Ensuring his legacy is one of his chief concerns and he wouldn’t want his bequest to be leaving the US mired in an intractable war in the Middle East. Another possibility is that Trump will become ever more insular, focusing on domestic politics while obsessing over his beloved ballroom and other vanity construction projects.
But the ballroom won’t be built before the end of Trump’s term and the Democrats could use their majority in Congress to investigate or halt the some $600m (€533m) project. Expect it to be another flashpoint in a tumultuous two years ahead in Washington.
Charlotte McDonald-Gibson is a Washington-based journalist and regular Monocle contributor. For further reactions to the US elections, tune in toMonocle Radio. For more opinion, analysis and insight,subscribeto Monocle today.
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