Trump's Trials - Trump tries to offer GOP a midterm 'roadmap,' but the path ahead remains unclear

Episode Date: January 7, 2026

In a meeting with House Republicans Tuesday, President Trump tried to offer his party a "roadmap" to maintain their congressional majorities in the midterms.Then, NPR's Michel Martin asks GOP strategist Ron Bonjean about the Republican Party's legislative priorities and challenges ahead of the midterms.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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With a focus on actions and policies he is pursuing on his own terms and in the process, taking the presidency into uncharted territory. Today's story starts right after this. I'm Michelle Martin. And I'm Leila Fawdell. There is something that Donald Trump can't quite wrap his head around. But I wish you could explain to me what the hell's going on with the mind of the public because we have the right policy. That was the president speaking to House Republicans on Tuesday about the possibility of losing the House in this year's midterm elections.

He was trying to offer his party a roadmap to. win, as he called it. So was he successful? NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro watched the speech and he joins me now. Domenico, good morning. Hey, good morning. So what are the headwinds Republicans are facing at the start of this year? Yeah, I mean, never mind the headline changing action in Venezuela. You know, right at the beginning of his speech yesterday, Trump acknowledged the vulnerable position that he and his party are in simply because of history. We want everything. But they say that when you win the president, you lose the midterm. And it's true that midterms are hard on a president's party. You know, on average,

they lose more than two dozen seats. And it's worse when a president's approval rating is below 50%. Right. And we know Trump's approval rating certainly it's been below 50% for a while. Yeah. And he's facing his lowest approval ratings of his second term. And it's been in large measure because of the cost of living. But Trump didn't offer much yesterday in his speech on that. In fact, it took him 48 minutes before he even started. talking about the economy at all. And when he did, it was about the stock market being at historic highs, and he touted his tariffs, which have actively raised prices on many things. And people have been telling pollsters for months that they feel Trump's policies have made the economy

worse. So if he didn't talk about strategy on prices, what did he talk about? I mean, his culture issues mostly. That's, you know, hardly unusual for Trump. He's always seems to be weaving back to that, as he calls it. He said, being against transgender athletes in sports is such a winning issue that he'd save it for the week before the election. He did an imitation of a woman lifting weights. One, he said that his own wife doesn't like. She says it's not presidential, but he went on to do it anyway. He talked about pushing for voter ID laws, immigration and crime, which in his mind are all related, he said, and his attempts at lowering drug prices on weight loss drugs, which he referred to as fat drugs. And he complained a lot

about how he doesn't get the credit he feels he deserves. And he's lamented at one point, what have you done for me lately, is the way you have to run your life nowadays. Now, Trump was speaking on the same day that Republican Congressman Doug LaMalfa of California died. He was 65. Republicans already had a historically small majority. Will it be even harder now for Republicans to pass legislation? Well, it would if there was a clear legislative agenda from Republicans in Congress, but there really isn't one right now. And a lot of those culture issues are things that Trump has gone around Congress on using executive powers. Now, one area where they could do something would be on health care.

Here's what Trump said about that. You can own health care. Figure it out. Let the money go directly to the people. Okay, own health care. How feasible is that? Well, Republicans, as we know, have had a long time to, quote, figure it out more than a decade. And they haven't been able to.

And they've been against extending Affordable Care Act subsidies. But it's one thing that campaign on a slogan like, let the money go to the people. It's very different to be president and to try to legislate on it. So if you're a Republican in a swing district, when the ACA is about as popular as it's ever been, you've got to be scratching your head wondering what is the strategy. And PR's Domenico, Montanaro. Thank you, Domenico. You're welcome.

Let's talk more about what Republicans realistically could accomplish ahead of the midterms in November. We've called Ron Von Jean for that. He's had key positions with Republicans in the Senate and the House. He's now with the Communications for Rock Solutions. Ron Vonjean, welcome back. Thanks for joining us once again. Hi, good morning. Thank you.

What's your sense of how the president's remarks went over with the caucus? Well, I'd say that the House Republicans wanted to hear President Trump talk about affordability, talk about the economy, talk about how they can get out of the health care, this health care Rubik's Cube that they're in right now. They want leadership from the president. this is the hard part one party rule of washington is extremely difficult and we've we've been through this before um a number of times and president trump's right that the in during midterm elections you know the party in power usually loses the house and to defy that they have to be unified they have to be focused on an agenda connecting with americans on what they want to hear so i'm sure some House Republicans were frustrated that they didn't hear about affordability in the economy

right away, you know, and they were told that they have to handle health care issue when they I think they need the president to say, here's how you get it done. So the math isn't great for Speaker Mike Johnson. He can only stand to have two defections on a party line vote if all members are present for legislative priorities. But the question is, you know, are there really any? I mean, the logic of the president's one big bill last year was to run the table. They did that. So is health care really what they have to run on? And if so, how is that going to work going forward since the president doesn't seem to be willing to put forward a bill?

Well, I think you're going to see an agenda coming out of House Republicans and coming out of the retreat. And I do think that the president has another opportunity, especially before the American people, with the state of the union that will happen early this year to, unveil the agenda. And they have to decide whether or not they want to use the, you know, the approach you used last year for the one big, beautiful bill, the reconciliation process and what those priorities would be. Right now, we haven't heard about exactly what Republicans are going to accomplish. We do know that 20 million Americans are going to lose health care coverage with the ending of Obamacare subsidies. Many of whom are Republicans and key Republican constituencies. I mean, they're entrepreneurs, small business people.

farmers people that's that's exactly right many of these are in mega mega districts you know but you do have committee chairman who do are working on pieces of legislation that they need to start talking about and that the president needs to take the leadership and talk about the agenda and here's what we're going to be doing not only about the successes they did through the one big beautiful bill but here's the plan going forward on how to make your lives better American lives better and more, you know, more affordable for their bottom line. That needs to happen. Let me run two more questions by you before we go.

Trump, the president, encourage Republicans to be, quote, flexible on abortion restrictions in order to get a health care bill passed. That's a non-starter for many Republicans. Is that possible? Is there a compromise possible, in your opinion? I think that it's going to, if that's, that's threading a needle, that's very difficult. That's a very small needle to thread. And is it possible?

Yeah, I'd say it's possible, not impossible. It's going to be very, very difficult. But right now, when you're facing, you know, the prospect of lots and lots of real hardship stories, the pressure is really on these folks to come through. So let's talk about Venezuela in the minute we have left. The administration's seizure of Venezuela's president, Trump's remarks about running the country,

unpopular among many America-first Republicans are self-described America-first Republicans. What are you hearing from the rest of the conference, whatever they're saying publicly, what do you hear about their understanding of this and how this is playing with them? Yeah, I think most Republicans think, okay, good, Maduro's a bad guy, we're glad he's out, but now what's the plan? And many Senate Republicans are waiting to comment, for example, because they're going to be hearing from the administration in a briefing today on and taking question, you know, and answering questions

about what the path forward to Venezuela. We do know that President Trump just talked about, you know, getting 30 to 50 million barrels of oil, which is a couple of billion dollars, which is, that's, you know, good news. But they want to hear what's the plan for with Venezuela. That is, Republican strategist Ron Bungee. Ron, thanks so much for joining us once again.

Thank you. Before we wrap up, a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.

Thank you.