But the Trump-Newsom sparring is also a tired rerun, and could go the way “Sleepy Joe Biden” has grown equally stale. “I did a focus group with MAGA types recently,” a veteran political strategist tells me. “And even they said, ‘Give it up already—the guy isn’t president anymore.’”
Recently sworn-in New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani once seemed positioned to be the perfect foil for the president: Even as they melted down on X, Republicans were thrilled to see the Muslim democratic socialist win, believing they could tar him as a loony left-winger. But Trump tossed gushed over Mamdani during the mayor-elect’s visit to the White House in late November. “The party was gearing up to make Mamdani the Democratic poster boy,” says Mike Madrid, a former Republican strategist turned Trump critic, “and then Trump has that meeting where it looks like he and Mamdani are going to get engaged.”
Trump recently did a mocking “impression” of a transgender weightlifter during a speech to House Republicans, and in an Iowa speech this week he claimed immigrants might “blow up our shopping centers, blow up our farms, kill people.” In advance of the midterms, Trump will likely ramp up his rhetoric about Democrats “rigging” elections. He will keep playing these and other greatest hits because they continue to work with his MAGA base. “What Trump has figured out is that there is a population in this country who are often motivated by hate,” says Jennifer Horn, a former chair of the New Hampshire Republican state committee and a co-founder of the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. “As long as he can keep reminding them that they hate the same people, they will continue to support him.”
Brendan Steinhauser, a Republican strategist in Texas, says GOP primary candidates “are mostly doubling down. They’re putting out ads saying how much they support the president and his agenda.”
Yet Trump’s attacks and distractions may be yielding diminishing returns beyond his base. Polling at the end of his first year back in the White House showed a strong majority of independents believing the country was worse off, with the economy driving the unhappiness. Trump’s revived threats against Iran and his continued slagging of Ilhan Omar won’t satisfy those concerns. “These recent poll numbers are rough, but I think he can get some of it back,” Steinhauser says. “The way to do that is to focus more on jobs and the economy.”
Which is why, as he searches for new sparring partners, blaming China presents an intriguing option. “A foreign enemy is always better for rallying support,” Madrid says. “And China could tie together a lot of things for Trump: They’re a military threat, they’re sending us fentanyl, they’re the cause of our economic problems!”
The president has a trip to Beijing scheduled for April. Trump could either amp up the antagonism or claim to have pulled off a brilliant America First deal—though neither approach would, or should, put the Minnesota mess behind him completely.
