An unpredictable President, a grim White House: Trump faces down Midterms

The White House faces staff turnover and midterm anxiety as Trump tightens his inner circle, attacks critics, holds rambling rallies and consumes news clips and what one aide called "AI slop"

By Katie Rogers

 US President Donald Trump’s private dining room, located just off the Oval Office, is where he goes to watch television, make phone calls, and sift through stacks of printed-out news articles and documents that eat up most of the space. A spot has been cleared for Natalie Harp, a devoted aide who now works out of that room when she is not seated behind the president at his desk.

 

Elsewhere, Bill Pulte, a top federal housing official and purveyor of A.I.-generated images and memes that make their way to the president’s social media feed, spends some of his time making posters. He recently made one of Senator Jon Husted of Ohio, a Republican whose backside Trump has admired, for the president to display while riding aboard Air Force One.

 

 

Amid the loyalists, news clippings, poster boards and pieces of art made by his fans is an increasingly unpredictable president staring down the possibility that the Republican Party could lose both chambers of Congress in next week’s elections.

 

Many GOP candidates in tight races have tried to distance themselves from Trump’s policies, his behavior and the widespread allegations of self-dealing in his administration. Behind the scenes, some political advisers and outside Republican groups have warned the president’s aides that Trump could do more harm than good by holding rallies in battleground states with uncomfortably close races, according to people with knowledge of the conversations. 

But the president, under pressure and angry with naysayers, has dismissed polls that reflect his unpopularity, and has raged against unflattering stories that plunge him into a dark mood. Determined to win by turning the midterm season into a referendum on himself, he is set to headline rallies around the country all week, including in Ohio on Wednesday.

 

Trump remains convinced that his dominant place in the Republican Party is enough to mitigate a tough political climate. But a grim mood has set in around the White House, which has been rocked by turnover, tension among internal factions and anxiety over what happens should Republicans lose legislative control in Washington, according to 16 current and former administration officials and allies of Trump’s, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

 

Danielle Alvarez, a White House spokeswoman, described the president and his aides as unified in their focus.

 

“There is only one team that matters in this White House, and that is the team focused on serving President Donald J. Trump and the American people,” Alvarez said in a statement, adding: “The president’s team remains strong, united and focused on delivering his America First agenda.” To several current and former White House officials who were around between early 2017 and early 2021, the past few weeks have felt particularly reminiscent of Trump’s first term. That period was marked by short, explosive staff tenures and infighting. Toward the end, Trump was struggling to govern during a pandemic. He lashed out as his poll numbers sank, then stoked fear and outrage among his supporters with false claims that the 2020 election was rigged, to the point that a large group attacked the Capitol. 

The difference between that term and this one, of course, is that Trump returned to power with a vengeance, and with a crew of loyalists who stood by him through his years as a political pariah.

 

Since returning, he has ordered his Justice Department to carry out a retribution campaign against his perceived enemies. He has unleased a federal crackdown on undocumented immigrants that has swept up US citizens and, at times, led to deadly confrontations. He has continued to trample on the ethical norms that have governed the presidency. And he has two more years to go.

 

Ahead of Tuesday, the stakes are high: Trump is trying to fend off the oversight and constraints that a Democratic-controlled Congress would bring, and to show that he still commands a strong political base. 

Trump’s recent appearances have included some of the economic policy-related messaging that Republicans have hoped to see. But that message has often been overshadowed by protesters, the president’s comments about the male physique and his venting sessions about Democrats, including Barack Obama, who recently said that Trump’s gilded White House renovations looked like “Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.” (The Cheesecake Factory “is a very successful company,” Trump said at a Mississippi rally on Monday.)

 

The president also frequently complains about how hard he is working, privately and publicly.

 

“I’m working my ass off,” Trump said in Tennessee earlier this month. “You better get out there and vote.” A person close to the White House political operation who was granted anonymity to describe the strategy said that Trump’s advisers were aware of the concerns that his presence in critical states could hurt G.O.P. candidates. But they have largely discounted them, believing, as Trump does, that he should be the centerpiece of this election cycle, the person added. Multiple advisers say the strategy is simple: Focus on red states and juice turnout. “The president does have a way of defying history,” Karoline Leavitt, his former press secretary, said during an appearance on the Bill Maher Show last weekend. “He’s working really hard out on the road to turn Republicans out to vote.” 

While speaking to allies in recent days, Trump has talked up the sizes of the crowds at his rallies, and has noted that Vice President JD Vance, the presumptive Republican front-runner in 2028, has not drawn large numbers to events that he is headlining.

 

Vance’s office did not respond to a request for comment, but the White House came to the vice president’s defense.

 

“Donald Trump is the hardest working person in the country, followed by JD Vance,” Alvarez said. “Both men are raising money, crisscrossing the country and making sure that candidates are successful these midterms.” As the elections approach, Trump is feasting on a media diet of fawning press coverage, disparaging clips about his perceived enemies, and helpings of flattering photos and “AI slop,” as one official put it. 

Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, tends to pop into Trump’s cabin aboard Air Force One while the president travels to and from rallies, showing him memes, posters and documents related to the mortgage industry. An administration official likened him to a court jester. Pulte did not respond to a request for comment.

 

When the president encounters critical or mocking coverage, he has responded with incredulity.

 

Over the weekend, Trump tuned expectantly into Maher’s show to watch the appearance of Leavitt, a trusted aide who left her perch in August. He grew enraged by Maher’s monologue, in which the comedian brought up Trump’s relationship with the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and reflected on a cordial dinner he had at the White House in October. “Could not have been treated better if I was Russian,” he quipped.

 

Furious, Trump dictated a roughly 1,300-word social media post to Harp aboard Air Force One. It was posted on his Truth Social site shortly after he returned to the White House on Sunday evening. “You’re not transformative, you’re a Loser! I never watched your show much, but I will never watch it again,” Trump wrote. The president is increasingly cloistered with a small group of acolytes. Harp, 35, abandoned her usual desk outside of the Oval Office in recent weeks, according to several administration officials familiar with the switch. 

Advisers close to the White House, who are bracing for Republicans to at least lose the House, expect Trump to make changes to his administration, depending on how next Tuesday goes. Presidents have typically reset their staffing after rough election cycles.

 

Trump made one jarring hiring decision on his own when he led the charge this fall to hire Katie Zacharia, a cable news pundit, as his new press secretary. The president, who had grown frustrated with the slow process to find a replacement for Leavitt, had watched clips of Zacharia and decided to quickly name her to the role, before a formal vetting process could be completed, according to people with knowledge of the situation. She found few internal allies.

 

While Zacharia traveled with Trump during her short tenure, she was not invited to attend daily senior staff meetings convened by Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, according to people familiar with the dynamic. After a rocky debut in the press briefing room, Zacharia was ousted after five days. 

Some White House observers viewed Zacharia’s hiring as a sign of Wiles’s declining influence with Trump, so much that they began circulating ideas about who could succeed her. Trump has publicly pushed back on reports that he is unhappy with or seeking to replace her.

 

“Susie is here,” Trump told reporters earlier this month, “and she’s going to be here for a long time.”