Welcome to Friday’s Washington Secrets. There’s only one story in town: the stunning midterm election results. We have our usual roundup, with the help of our friendly strategists. Plus what Karine Jean-Pierre did next …
The week began with Donald Trump on the road. His campaign travel came to a close on Sunday with rallies in Iowa and Kansas.
“I’m closing it down tonight. This is it,” he told the crowd in Salina where he campaigned with Sen. Roger Marshall, who was facing a tough reelection battle. The two rallies had been canceled but hurriedly reinstated as party officials sounded warnings in both states.
On Monday, he delivered his final message at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. He spoke for 20 minutes about his projects to beautify Washington, joked about renaming the pool as the “Trump Reflecting Pool,” and again claimed that vandals had been to blame for its problems, before turning his attention to the election.
The unusual focus surprised many Republican strategists who had hoped for a sharper economic message.
The president remained out of sight on Election Day. He had policy discussions and a meeting with the U.S. ambassador to Portugal, according to his official schedule, before repairing to the East Room to watch results roll in with advisers and guests.
As Democrats took the House and Senate in what analysts quickly dubbed a “bluenami,” he posted on Truth Social: “I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!”
Again on Wednesday, he was due to stay out of sight. His public schedule listed only “closed-press” meetings. But in the event, the White House press pool was suddenly summoned to the ballroom construction site.
The president wanted to talk building work while reporters wanted to quiz him on the midterm election disaster. He signed the final steel beam and watched it hauled into place before discussing the elections. He said: “We weren’t able to transfer love to the candidates.”
He said Vice President JD Vance’s post blaming the Iran war for the losses was “largely true” because it raised gas prices. And when he was asked how he would deal with Democrats, he said: “I’ll get along, probably… but I have the power of the veto.”
Thursday brought a thinly sourced story that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would be next to leave the administration in order to run for president in 2028. More probable were reports that the president has been taking soundings on dumping Pete Hegseth, his embattled War Secretary who faces the threat of impeachment from both sides of the aisle.
In the Oval Office, Trump told ABC’s Jon Karl that he had “every intention” of keeping Hegseth. And, in his first official act since the elections, he signed a proclamation designating the Oval Office and Cabinet Room as national monuments. A red “VETO” baseball cap sat on the Resolute Desk as he signed.
So is this what we can expect for the next two years? Vetoes and construction?
On Friday, Trump will travel to the John F. Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to deliver a speech before spending the weekend at Mar-a-Lago.
So what did our two strategists make of it all?
You are reading Washington Secrets, a guide to power and politics in D.C. and beyond. It is written by Rob Crilly. You can reach him at [email protected] with your comments, story tips, and suggestions.
Jed Babbin: Grade F
The Republicans were booted out of control of the House and the Senate this week. They lost seven Senate seats (including Kansas, which hadn’t sent a Democrat to the Senate since 1932) and more than 30 House seats.
Trump insisted that if he were on the ballot, it would have been a win. Vice President JD Vance said the loss was due to the Iran war and Israel. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said it was an “extinction-level” event.
However you look at it, it was a devastating blow to MAGA and all the president’s followers. It wasn’t a total blowout because some Republicans won, including governor-elect Byron Donalds of Florida.
Trump is ending our financial support for Israel, which brings him into line with the position of Abdul el Sayed. This is a very bad move that will hurt Israel and make it more vulnerable to Iranian and proxy attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis.
With Democrats now in control of the House, Trump can look forward to impeachment proceedings and possible conviction. So too can War Secretary Pete Hegseth. Will Trump be the first president to be removed from office?
There will be endless subpoenas and testimony next year about all things foreign and domestic.
Tuesday’s midterm elections were also something of a victory for Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. American voters elected socialists and vile antisemites such as el Sayed to the Senate and other posts despite the president’s near Herculean efforts to campaign. Is Trump’s brand becoming poisonous?
The principal dangers now are the possible forced end of the war in Iran under the War Powers Act. The Democrats will want to raise taxes and reopen the borders. The Republicans will fight them but will be on the losing end.
Trump will be a very lonely guy for the next two years, vetoing and trying to defeat the Democrats’ major initiatives. Some vetoes will be sustained, and possibly several will be overridden. Several constitutional fights will erupt over things such as the War Powers Act.
Jed Babbin (@jedbabbin) is a Washington Examiner contributor and former deputy undersecretary of defense in the administration of President George H.W. Bush.
John Zogby: Grade F
Election Day 2026 marked a total repudiation of Trump and his policies. The breadth and depth of the GOP losses mark a record of sorts.
Islamophobia, reprehensible personal ads, anti-transgender messages, pro-Israel dark money, socialist-baiting, and so much more — they all lost.
This was less a pro-Democrat rally and more a rejection of the president as a man, a policymaker, a commander in chief, a foreign diplomat, and chief architect of inflation.
He told voters after the election that had he been on the ballot, he would have won. There were too many bad GOP candidates, he noted.
Yet he was on the ballot in voters’ minds, and he was responsible for several of the dismal candidates he recruited. Strides made in 2024 among Hispanics, young black men, and younger voters overall simply evaporated over two years.
Two-thirds of 18- to 44-year-olds voted Democrat, as did 64% of Hispanics, and 90% of blacks. And the GOP has either already lost or is on track to lose every one of their mid-decade gerrymandered districts.
The president is described as angry. His staff and consultants are entertaining themselves with gallows humor. Advice from this senior consultant: Get your own food trucks and get out of town. Shawarma is pretty popular these days.
John Zogby (@ZogbyStrategies) is the founder of the Zogby Survey and senior partner at John Zogby Strategies. His latest book is Beyond the Horse Race: How to Read Polls and Why We Should. His podcast with son, managing partner, and pollster Jeremy Zogby, can be heard here.
What Karine Jean-Pierre did next
Congratulations to Karine Jean-Pierre. She was once the face of the White House, holding daily briefings, and being so busy that she didn’t notice Joe Biden getting older, slower, and frailer in front of her.
So no wonder she is demand. It was announced this week that she is to serve on Will Jawando’s transition steering committee.
In case you missed Tuesday’s big election result, Jawando won the race to be the next Montgomery County executive in Maryland. And he has tapped his old pal — they apparently worked down the hall from each other in the Obama White House — who happens to be a Montgomery County resident.
Jean-Pierre has largely stayed out of the public eye since leaving the White House, but told the Baltimore Banner that she didn’t need much convincing to dip her toes back into politics.
“Politics is local,” she said. “If you get engaged and involved, then hopefully you not just make your life better, but other people’s lives better.”
But she still hasn’t forgiven the Democratic Party for dumping her boss just ahead of the 2024 election. She remains an independent, after quitting the party last year.
Lunchtime reading
Joe Redner, Tampa’s strip club king who fought for his lap dancers’ right to bare all: Includes a deliciously snooty dig at his weak grasp of Latin in naming one of his clubs, Mons Venus.
How Bob Dylan met the Pope: Did Pope Leo XIV mind about the hood? Why did Dylan use one of those cheap four-color pens to sign a book? It’s all here.