Donald Trump's inner circle expressed frustration with the President heading into the midterms as voters grew wary of the war in Iran and he fixated on the ballroom, a bombshell new report says.
The Republican Party is reeling after an historic blue wave swept the United States on Tuesday, with the Democrats taking both the House and Senate by sizable margins.
The blame game has begun, with Trump casting responsibility on the candidates themselves. But a New York Times report claims members of Trump's midterm strategy team had begun to grow frustrated.
The GOP claimed Trump waited far too long to sign off on spending from his $400million war chest.
The funds – which Trump called 'my money' and came from continued fundraising from after the 2024 election – were something Senate strategists couldn't get him to sign off on as late as August.
One said they were 'shocked at how ill-prepared they were' and when Trump finally let that money go, the GOP was forced to pay significantly higher rates than Democrats who had purchased ads earlier.
An expert claimed that because Left-leaning ad buys had been made in advance, Trump's super PAC had to spend four times as much as top Democrat super PACs and got 70 percent fewer ads on the air for that money in Alaska alone.
The Trump super PAC had to pay $30,000 for a spot that aired during the evening news that Democrats, who reserved the ad time much earlier, paid just $2,700 for.
Members of Donald Trump's inner circle expressed frustration with the President's focus heading into the midterms, candidate selection and poorly spent campaign funds
James Blair, the man tasked with running the President's midterm strategy, was also behind the President's ill-fated redistricting push
Advisers heard Trump switch wildly in terms of his own interest in the race. On some days, he would emphasize doing 'anything' to win the midterms.
However, on others, Trump seemed more pleased with how much more popular he was than the candidates he'd hand chosen.
'It says something very nice about me that they just can't win without me,' he told some aides.
Candidate selection was another aspect of the midterm strategy questioned by Trump's team.
Michael Whatley of North Carolina, Darline Graham of South Carolina and especially Ken Paxton in Texas were seen as brutal choices.
'I have seen the enemy and it is us,' said James Blair, the man tasked with running the President's midterm strategy.
'In many places,' added Tony Fabrizio, the president's chief pollster.
All throughout 2026, Trump pushed policies that insiders saw as potentially throwing the elections to Democrats.
Tony Fabrizio, the President's top pollster, saw red flags regarding the Iran War in focus groups he conducted
Candidate selection was another aspect of the midterm strategy questioned by Trump's team. Michael Whatley of North Carolina, Darline Graham of South Carolina and especially Ken Paxton (above) in Texas were seen as brutal choices
One noted that the Iran War was a complete misstep at multiple levels. Fabrizio did polling on the Iran war that was largely ignored by the president.
JD Vance negotiated a ceasefire in June and polling showed the pause in fighting was favored by 41 points. In addition, 67 percent saw it as potentially lowering gas prices.
However, the truce was short lived and the Iran War remains ongoing into its ninth month. Hawkish members of the GOP like Ted Cruz were blamed for keeping Trump interested in the strikes.
In focus groups run by Fabrizio, voters said Trump broke a promise to avoid foreign wars. They also said they didn't understand why the US was fighting in Iran.
Members of Trump's powerful MAGA base told pollsters two things Trump could do to get them back to voting: ending the war and getting inflation under control.
In addition, key members of Trump's staff attempted to get him to moderate on immigration, particularly after the ICE shootings in Minnesota earlier in the year.
The battle was largely fought between Chief of Staff 'Ice Queen' Susie Wiles and Stephen Miller, one of the architects of Trump's immigration strategy.
Senior strategists saw the Renee Good and Alex Pretti shootings turn immigration from a strong issue for Trump to a weakness.
Fabrizio offered Trump an offramp in June when JD Vance (pictured) negotiated a ceasefire, which his polling showed was favored by 41 points with voters who knew about and 67 percent saw it as potentially lowering gas prices
Key members of Trump's staff attempted to get him to moderate on immigration, particularly after the ICE shootings in Minnesota earlier in the year. The battle was largely fought over months between Chief of Staff 'ice queen' Susie Wiles (pictured) and Stephen Miller
The President allegedly asked one advisor: 'If we never went into Iran, what do you think would happen in the midterms?'
Key Trump allies saw his summer of promoting projects to renovate the White House as alienating to voters.
Trump consistently promoted the new White House Ballroom and his attempt to create a public golf course in Washington rather than focusing on key issues.
The $5,000 'Trump dividend' was announced at Trump's midterm GOP convention without being run by most of the President's inner circle.
Blair, meanwhile, is accused of being responsible for another midterm misfire: redistricting.
It was Blair who presented Trump with the plan to get more GOP-friendly districts in red states while he was still working in the White House in 2025.
When presented with the plan, Democrat Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries reacted with an expletive: 'You've got to be f***ing kidding me.'
However, Democrats largely avoided the worst of redistricting by either recruiting strong candidates in the redrawn districts or countering it with new maps of their own in California, which landed them five extra seats.
Join the discussionHas Trump's focus on self-promotion and controversial decisions cost the GOP its future?
Trump consistently promoted the new White House Ballroom and his attempt to create a public golf course in Washington rather than focusing on key issues
On a private video call just a week before the election, Blair appeared to have seen defeat coming.
'I'm getting my affairs in order. I suggest everybody else do the same,' he said, before joking with Fabrizio that they might 'get asylum in Israel' to avoid the Democrat lawfare that was to come.
The Daily Mail has reached out to the White House for comment on the story.
Hours after Democrats seized both chambers of Congress in one of the most bruising midterm defeats in modern political history, the President called into Fox News late Tuesday night and did something totally out of character: He praised the opposition.
'Democrats did a good job,' he said. 'They fought hard.'
He told the New York Times he was absolutely willing to accept the result, and said he would rather cut deals with Democrats than spend his last two years in office vetoing their bills.
By Wednesday morning, he was standing at the construction site of his new ballroom, taking questions with the air of a man discussing someone else's problem.
He said, again, that he had not been on the ballot – even though he had asked voters to pretend he was – and that he had no plans to change his Cabinet because the result had nothing to do with them.
But behind the ballroom bravado, Trump was working the phones – and he was looking for a scalp.
After Wiles and even Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been named by GOP operatives hungry for a scapegoat, it seemed Trump – after just a few hours of sleep – had settled on a different name.
Canvassing a handful of close advisers, he asked each of them whether Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should keep his job, a White House insider familiar with the President's phone calls told the Daily Mail, with two other insiders confirming the account.
The Vice President did not wait, blaming the election results squarely on the Iran war in a statement on Wednesday morning that stopped just short of also blaming the President.
Vance wrote in part: 'The reason we lost is the war. The president himself said so last night.'
Hegseth has not publicly commented since the midterm results.
As of early Thursday morning, the Democrats have clinched 240 seats in the House of Representatives and 54 Senate seats.
That's more than enough for majorities in both houses and more are expected to be called for the Dems in the coming days, including shock potential Senate wins in Mississippi and Alaska.
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