Congressional Cowards is a weekly series highlighting Donald Trump’s worst defenders on Capitol Hill, who refuse to criticize him, no matter how shameful or lawless his actions.
Congressional Republicans are giving their assessment of what went wrong in Tuesday’s devastating midterm elections, in which the party lost at least seven Senate seats, more than 40 House seats, six governorships and at least 11 state legislative chambers.
This is a historic fight that has left the Republican Party unable to rig the system in its favor.
Of course, we know what went wrong: The Republican Party hitched its wagon to President Donald Trump, then refused to stand up to him when he broke his promises to reduce inflation and not start new wars.
Trump’s tariffs and war in Iran – as well as his refusal to release the Epstein files – ended up angering his own base, ultimately leading to a feud for the benefit of the Republican Party.
But many Republicans have refused to say that Trump’s behavior, and their own cowardice in opposing him, is what cost them the midterm elections. This shows that any talk of standing up to Trump after these bombings is nonsense.
“This is a Republican reckoning and a Republican reset,” Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York told CBS on Tuesday evening. “Trump is one of them. He has built a unique coalition of his supporters and Republicans have struggled to emulate that coalition.”
Of course, the coalition collapsed because of Trump himself, but Stefanik couldn’t bring herself to say that — even though her term ends in January, so she has nothing left to lose.
Meanwhile, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin gave a completely crazy assessment of why his fellow Republicans lost in a landslide.
“This is the culmination of many years of left-wing infiltration into our education system, our media and so many other of our institutions,” he said. “The fact that a large percentage of young people and the American population embrace socialism when we know how destructive it is…combined with Trump’s derangement syndrome, I think it’s certainly created a lot of enthusiasm. »
Johnson literally looked more like crazy people on the street ranting in tinfoil hats than a U.S. senator.
Meanwhile, Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee, another MAGA warrior, was partly right when he said voters punished the Republican Party for failing to address affordability and government corruption.
But what is missing from Burchett’s analysis is WHO at the root of the affordability and corruption crises: Trump. If you can’t admit the cause of the affordability crisis, how on earth can you convince voters that your party is going to solve it?
Surprisingly, Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin actually blamed Trump, but he said it was Trump’s personal conduct, not policy decisions, that made life worse for Americans.
“I think it comes down to, you know, President Trump, who I think has a very good cabinet, but he sometimes speaks in an inappropriate, not very presidential way,” Grothman said, sounding like a relic of 2018 and not 2026. “I talk to a lot of people and I tell you, it turns people off.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, who is now, after Tuesday, the state’s last remaining Republican elected official, did blaming Trump’s policies and the Republican Congress’ refusal to intervene.
“Tariffs have made everything too expensive, and the war in Iran has lasted too long. It should have been brief, decisive and over. It must end, and we should never, under any circumstances, give billions of dollars to the Ayatollah,” Cruz wrote in a lengthy article on
But rather than blaming Trump by name, Cruz added that Trump will now face unfair persecution from the new Democratic Congress.
“In Washington, they will attack Trump every day, constantly. Impeachment hearings, subpoenas, his family, cabinet members, business leaders, open persecution and relentless retaliation,” he wrote. “Make no mistake. At the national level, the radicals are in charge. The communists and Islamists who took power in the Democratic Party have now taken control of the United States Congress. They are going to be unleashed.”
Ultimately, the infighting within the Republican Party over what went wrong and how the party should fix it is only just beginning.
As the reality sets in that Republicans will have little power at the Capitol and in state governments across the country, this infighting will surely intensify, especially as the 2028 battle heats up.
Ultimately, the Republican Party is in disarray. We love to see it.
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