Revealed: GOP Senate Aides Say White House Has 'Gone Rogue'

Trump's support from blue-collar voters collapses; Jared Kushner's Albanian resort is crumbling; and Trump turns 80, raising questions about his health

Good morning. I’m John Byrne.

The GOP’s own Senate aides say the Trump White House has “gone rogue” as the midterms bear down and prices keep climbing. Trump has lost the faith of the blue-collar white voters who built his coalition. Jared Kushner’s luxury resort scheme has accidentally set off a national uprising in Albania. And as Trump turns 80 on Sunday, his own advisers have made him impossible to look away from — which means Americans are now watching an aging president nod off at the NBA Finals and trip over which country he just bombed.

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Trump’s Own Party Says the White House Has “Gone Rogue”

If you want to know how nervous Republicans are heading into November, listen to what they’re saying about their own president when they think no one will attach their name to it.

Furious GOP Senate aides unloaded to the conservative Daily Mail this week, and the language was striking. “People are pissed the f— off that prices are too high,” one senior aide said. “I’m just not sure the president really cares or if he’s really in tune with what’s going on on Capitol Hill.”

Another was blunter still: “Between the Pulte nominations and anti-weaponization fund, the White House has definitely gone rogue.” The aide pointed out that Trump hasn’t even bothered to consult Senate Majority Leader John Thune. “We’re begging the White House to focus on issues to help Republicans in the midterms,” the aide said. “But it feels like it’s falling on deaf ears.”

A third aide complained about “wild swings in who gets thrown under the bus week by week.” A fourth warned darkly: “If our coalition falls apart, we will not be able to advance the president’s priorities.”

The grievances track exactly with Trump’s recent string of self-inflicted wounds: the UFC cage match he’s hosting on the White House lawn for his birthday, the $1.776 billion so-called “anti-weaponization” fund built to pay Trump loyalists, and the appointment of Bill Pulte as acting Director of National Intelligence. Meanwhile gas and grocery prices keep climbing, and Republicans on the Hill can’t get the president to talk about any of it.

There’s something almost poetic about a party discovering, eight months from an election, that the man at the top of the ticket won’t listen to anyone.

Washington warned in his Farewell Address that runaway loyalty to one leader would let cunning men put a faction above the public good. These aides aren’t worried about the country. They’re worried about their seats. But they’re describing the same disease.

Trump Is Losing the Voters Who Built His Movement

Here are the numbers that should terrify Republican strategists more than any leaked aide quote.

A New York Times review of polling found an extraordinary collapse in support among white working-class voters, the demographic that has been the foundation of Trump’s coalition for a decade. In the 2018 midterms, these voters approved of his handling of the economy by margins of 30 points or more. Today, recent polls show them disapproving by anywhere from 14 to more than 30 points.

Look at the spread: Fox News has his economic approval among these voters at 33 percent. CBS News, 39. NPR/PBS/Marist, 40. On the cost of living specifically, the Times found just 36 percent approval among blue-collar white voters. Fox put his inflation approval at a stunning 25 percent.

Trump’s lost the faith of his most loyal supporters on the most important issue of the year.

The cause is no mystery. The Strait of Hormuz, through which roughly a fifth of the world’s oil flows, has been closed since Trump launched the Iran war in late February. Gas has hit $4.19 a gallon nationally, and in some places far higher. Tim Spencer, a 72-year-old retired tool and die maker from Pella, Iowa, told the Times that filling his Chevy pickup now costs $140, up from $90. This year, he says, the camping trips stay in-state. “With the price of gas now, it’s an Iowa camper,” he said.

Democratic pollster Molly Murphy described focus groups of working-class Trump voters who were “at a loss for words” trying to justify the Iran war after it hit their wallets. She called it “a watershed moment of them reckoning with him not being the person they thought he was.”

Democrats don’t need to win these voters outright. They just need to lose them by less. And the president keeps making that easy. “I love the inflation,” Trump said in the Oval Office this week, a line now running in Democratic ads from three camera angles in twelve seconds.

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Kushner’s Resort Scheme Sparks a Revolution in Albania

This next one shows how far the Trump family’s business reach now extends, and how badly it can backfire.

When Jared Kushner decided to back a luxury holiday development on Albania’s pristine southern coast, he probably didn’t expect to ignite a national uprising. But that’s exactly what happened.

A proposed 10,000-bed resort near a protected wildlife area — home to flamingos, sea turtles and one of Europe’s last wild river deltas — has set off what Albanians are now calling the “flamingo revolution,” Politico reports. It’s grown into perhaps the largest popular demonstrations since the country threw off communism more than three decades ago.

What started as an environmental protest has become a nationwide revolt against the entire ruling class. Tens of thousands have filled the streets of Tirana for nearly three weeks, with copycat demonstrations spreading to Shkodra, Durres and beyond, and Albanians abroad organizing their own. The signs read “Albania is not for sale.”

Prime Minister Edi Rama, strikingly, refuses to apologize. He told Politico that foreign developers like Kushner matter more than Albania’s own citizens: “Foreigners are the first priority ... because foreigners bring money to the country for Albanians.” He even sneered that the world only cares because of who’s involved: “If it was not Jared, they would not give a shit about what is happening in Albania.”

The €1.4 billion project was approved with no environmental impact assessment. A road has already been cut through the protected dunes, and conservationists say a turtle nesting site was destroyed by construction machines.

Kushner’s Affinity Partners may have quietly pulled out — the firm didn’t respond to Politico — but the cement foundations and the bulldozed road remain. The Kushners also have plans to turn Albania’s only island, Sazan, into another resort.

The framers wrote two emoluments clauses into the Constitution because they’d watched rulers stop telling the public treasury apart from their own pockets. The Albanians in Tirana don’t need to read the Federalist Papers to understand it. They just want their flamingos.

At 80, Trump Is Everywhere — And the Cracks Are Showing

Finally, this Sunday Donald Trump turns 80, making him the oldest president in American history. His advisers have made a deliberate bet: flood the zone with Trump. Marathon Oval Office sessions, cold calls answered from his cellphone, social media posts at every hour of the day and night. The idea, according to the Wall Street Journal, is to draw a contrast with Joe Biden by proving Trump is everywhere at once.

The problem is that being everywhere means Americans see everything. Including the parts the White House would rather hide.

This week alone, cameras caught Trump appearing to nod off at Game 3 of the NBA Finals in New York, snacking on french fries and pizza in his suite before heading back to the White House after 2 a.m. The next morning he dismissed the downing of a U.S. Apache helicopter near the Strait of Hormuz as something that “wasn’t a big deal.” Then he ordered retaliatory strikes on Iran hours later.

The flubs are piling up. He’s called Greenland “Iceland.” He’s called the Strait of Hormuz the “Strait of Iran.” He’s mixed up conflicts in South America and the Middle East. The Journal previously reported his hearing has deteriorated, his skin has grown delicate, he’s resisted treatment for the swelling in his legs, and he gained 14 pounds between his last two physicals. Cameras keep finding his bruised hands and closed eyes.

The White House insists the NBA footage was a misleading camera angle and blames the hand bruising on too many handshakes. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt points to his “relentless schedule” as proof of fitness. But Rep. Ted Lieu put it plainly after playing footage of Trump apparently dozing during a cabinet meeting: the White House needs to “come clean” and tell Americans what’s going on.

Here’s the bitter irony. For two years, the Biden decline was treated as a national scandal. And not without reason. It’s time for the White House to come clean on Trump.

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I’m John Byrne. Enjoy your Saturday. Thanks for staying in the fight.