‘Bloodbath,’ ‘Extinction-Level Event,’ ‘Buckle Up’: Top Republicans Eyeing White House Runs Rip Administration for Disastrous Midterms

Within hours of massive losses dealt to the GOP, top Republicans with eyes on their own prospective 2028 presidential bids laid into the Trump administration, describing it as a “bloodbath” and an “extinction-level” event. Even Vice President JD Vance admitted that he and the president should have listened to those voters who said they were “pissed off.”Several Republican candidates have made clear this year that they are not afraid of Mr. Vance as an electoral juggernaut even though he has a commanding lead in hypothetical polls for Republican primaries. Senator Ted Cruz and Governor Ron DeSantis have both said that they may run for president again in the future after each lost to President Trump. The former UN ambassador and South Carolina governor, Nikki Haley, has been out publicly bashing her party for allowing Democrats to flip an expected 44 House seats when all is said and done, the largest swing since Watergate. After it became clear that Democrats would take both the House and Senate on Tuesday night, recriminations began flowing. Criticisms spanned the Iran war, Mr. Trump’s lack of focus on the most important issues, and the failure of political consultants to see the disaster coming. Democrats are now favored to carry 56 seats in the Senate and somewhere around 260 seats in the House — the largest Democratic majorities in nearly two decades. Mr. DeSantis, who is term-limited and will leave office at the end of this year, was the first to come out and decry the Republican shellacking that his party suffered on Tuesday. He was more than happy to talk about how the Florida GOP held on to all of its offices, however. “This is close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country,” Mr. DeSantis told reporters at a press conference. “In January … of the ten largest states in this union, only one state will have Republican control of their state — the state of Florida.”In an interview with CNN on Wednesday night, Mr. DeSantis described Mr. Trump as a “unique” political figure able to bring together a cross-ideological electoral coalition. But now, he said, it is time for the GOP to develop a coherent message for the future. “I think it’s gotta be ideas-based,” Mr. DeSantis said. “What do we stand for?”Mr. Cruz was just as blunt in his assessment of the results. The title of his podcast episode breaking down the returns was “Bloodbath.” He says the Trump 2024 coalition had fallen apart, and that it was time to work to rebuild it by lowering trade barriers, investing in young people, and ensuring that more Americans are able to participate as stakeholders in the American economy. “As I see it, the key constituencies we lost were blue-collar voters, what had rightly become the core base of our party, Evangelical Christians, who didn’t show up with the same numbers and fervor as prior elections, farmers, and ranchers. Tragically, we alienated rural America. Young people, who excitedly had voted Republican in 2024, and who shifted hard blue this cycle. And of course, Hispanics,” Mr. Cruz wrote. Mr. Cruz has long advocated for military conflict with Iran in order to prevent the country from developing nuclear weapons, though he criticized the administration for how it has handled the conflict, and how it has dismissed voters’ concerns about prices. “The Iran war has dragged on too long. It should have been brief, decisive, and over. It needs to end, and we should never, under any circumstances, give the Ayatollah billions of dollars,” the Texas senator — now the only GOP statewide office holder in his state — wrote in a clear shot at Mr. Vance’s memorandum of understanding with the Iranians. Ms. Haley, meanwhile, also went after her party for not addressing the issues that were important to Americans. “This is not a time to whine,” she wrote in a post on X, including a clip of herself on “The TODAY Show.” Ms. Haley has been on what seems to be a kind of mini press tour, showing up on air several times in the last three days — a sign that she might want back in the arena.“What you saw in D.C. was self-dealing and corruption and celebrating, and what I will say is: Get a good night’s sleep, [let’s] take our medicine, and let’s get to work. This can shift in two years,” she said Wednesday.

‘Bloodbath,’ ‘Extinction-Level Event,’ ‘Buckle Up’: Top Republicans Eyeing White House Runs Rip Administration for Disastrous Midterms

‘Bloodbath,’ ‘Extinction-Level Event,’ ‘Buckle Up’: Top Republicans Eyeing White House Runs Rip Administration for Disastrous Midterms

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