Donald Trump managed to conceal his rage for the cameras.
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 White House 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 his Chief of Staff Susie 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.
After his Chief of Staff Susie Wiles (right) and even Secretary of State Marco Rubio had been named by GOP operatives hungry for a scapegoat, it seemed Trump had settled on a different name.
And those sources now expect Hegseth to be gone before the new Congress is sworn in next January, a deadline that has little to do with Trump's anger and everything to do with arithmetic.
Once Democrats take the Senate at the start of next year, confirming a replacement to head up the Pentagon becomes a fight the White House would rather not have.
'Trump is making phone calls, contemplating it,' said a senior Republican.
The case against Hegseth is not the Iran war itself – now being blamed in many conservative quarters, including by the Vice President JD Vance, for Tuesday's drubbing – but what the President was told about it, according to one source, who described Trump repeatedly learning of important operational updates from the Persian Gulf after the fact.
'There's always some new information that he's being told after the fact,' said a White House insider, who described Trump demanding to know why Iran's surface-to-air defenses and missiles had not yet been destroyed, after Hegseth had claimed on several occasions that the US military had eliminated them.
It is also claimed there have been incidents where the President has learned about threats only after they have materialized.
Another source put it plainly: 'The defense secretary is in charge of knowing and explaining accurately what is possible and what the relative risks are. There is nobody else responsible for that.'
The White House has, of course, officially dismissed it. Spokeswoman Anna Kelly said the President retains full confidence in Hegseth. A Pentagon spokesperson was happy to agree, saying: 'Secretary Hegseth always provides the President and White House senior leaders with the full operational picture.'
But there is another reason to move quickly here, said a veteran GOP operative, who pointed out that the incoming Democratic House is expected to go after Hegseth, raising the prospect of an impeachment and subsequent Senate trial nobody in the building wants, least of all the President.
Indeed, late Wednesday, Kentucky Democrat Thomas Massie told CNN he plans to trigger a vote to impeach Hegseth when Congress returns next week.
Meanwhile Susie Wiles, the all-powerful chief of staff many Republicans are now privately blaming for this defeat, appears to have miraculously pulled it back from the brink. She is, say multiple insiders, expected to survive the coming 'purge' by playing a very Trumpian game of '4D chess', pitting the President's top Cabinet members – namely Vance and Rubio – against each other and flying herself to safety under the radar.
Read More
EXCLUSIVE Trump's dark night 'paralyzed' by fury as he hid in private residence: Explosive fly-on-wall 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.'
But did Trump actually say that?
Sources have called Vance's 600-word statement a carefully calculated effort to distance himself from the disaster of the Iran war – held responsible by a majority of America's for mounting cost of living pressures – and shift blame onto administration hawks like Hegseth and Rubio as he positions for 2028.
Trump, asked about it by journalists at the ballroom construction site, declined to fight, calling Vance's assessment 'largely true' because the war had driven up gas prices in 'the short term'. But, he added, 'you can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon.'
The question is whether the President knew in advance that Vance's statement was coming. The answer is now disputed inside the West Wing.
'The President was blindsided by the tweet,' a White House official told the Daily Mail, saying Trump had not authorized it before it went out.
A second official said the opposite: 'Yes the White House was aware before the post went out. POTUS was briefed beforehand as well and did not have any issues with it. Which is why he backed it up when asked by reporters.'
Another close source gave the same account, saying the post was flagged to the White House and cleared for publication.
Within hours, the President's eldest son Donald Trump Jr had endorsed the Vance post on X.
Don Jr is, of course, one of Vance's most powerful allies in Trumpworld.
'The President was blindsided by the tweet,' a White House official told the Daily Mail, saying Trump had not authorized Vance's statement before it went out.
Not everyone in that presidential orbit was as generous in their assessment.
'It's too little, too late,' said a top Trump official. 'He [Vance] didn't even have the guts to really say the Iran war was a mistake, just that it's the reason we lost.
'It's pathetic, honestly. He needs to be willing to gamble with Trump's wrath to even have a chance at 2028.'
Returning to the Hegseth issue – one name is already circulating in talks about a replacement. Some news reports Wednesday had it that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis's name has been floated.
But sources at the very top of the White House poured cold water on the idea.
'Meatball Ron thought he could take over President Trump's Party once before and got humiliated,' a White House official told the Daily Mail. 'Republican voters already told him what they think of his ambitions but, apparently, his ego still hasn't gotten the message.'
It hasn't been forgotten in Washington that DeSantis fired Wiles, who ran his 2018 campaign of the governorship.
On Tuesday night, Wiles and Trump's close aide Natalie Harp were with the President as he watched the Blue Wave sweep in from the comfort his private White House residence, refusing to go downstairs to his staff's watch party or see anyone else.
'The President is pretty well insulated,' a former Trump official said, describing a firewall of Wiles loyalists who control who reaches him.
Only Cabinet members and major donors get through from outside.
Wiles's two blind spots are Natalie Harp and housing finance director Bill Pulte, both of whom have unfiltered access to Trump because he likes them too much for Wiles to do anything about it, the former official said.
The White House's Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair and Trump adviser Chris LaCivita are Wiles appointees, and handing either of them up as a midterms scapegoat would expose her.
And so Wiles's allies have instead begun the briefing war – against Hegseth and against Marco Rubio, who as secretary of state shares responsibility for the failed peace negotiations with Iran. Though, one source readily added, he was not the principal in the talks – Vance was.
'It sets up a situation in which Rubio or his allies will say, well no, Mr President, you had JD negotiate in Iran not me,' the source said. 'And that then sets up Vance and Rubio on a collision course.'
'The President is pretty well insulated,' a former Trump official said, describing a firewall of Wiles loyalists who control who reaches him (pictured, right, is aide Natalie Harp)
Wiles's allies have begun the briefing war - against Hegseth (right) and against Rubio (middle), who as secretary of state shares responsibility for the failed peace negotiations with Iran. Though, one source readily added, he was not the principal in the talks – Vance was.
Vance's role in those aborted Iran talks is not in dispute, after Trump personally tasked him with heading to Islamabad and Geneva alongside special envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner.
Vance and Rubio, the two men most likely to seek the Republican nomination in 2028, now have reason to blame each other for the war that cost their party Congress.
That, said a senior Trump official, is the entire point.
'Susie is looking to protect herself but ultimately she's also trying to protect the boss,' the official said.
'Shifting the blame to Hegseth, putting Rubio in the firing line, and giving JD a headache guarantees her survival post-midterm but also protects Trump's legacy.'
Source link
