The chief executive of one of the most hardcore pro-Trump outlets in America lashed out at the president this week, stating that Donald Trump appears “weak and rudderless” on economic issues following a Democratic sweep in last week’s off-year elections.
Sean Davis, the CEO of The Federalist, took to X on Sunday afternoon to blast both Trump and Republicans for not adequately addressing the concerns many Americans have about the continued rise in inflation and the cost of housing.
While Democrats made affordability the central issue in last Tuesday’s elections, Trump called it a “con job” invented by his political opponents while insisting that prices were actually coming down. “The reason I don’t want to talk about affordability — everybody knows it is far less expensive under Trump than it was under sleepy Joe Biden,” he said last week, a day after declaring: “I don’t want to hear about the affordability.”
Davis, who has regularly defended the president and his administration, first took aim at congressional Republicans on their “strategy right now,” claiming that whoever is advising them “has an IQ barely approaching room temperature.”
According to the right-wing media figure, the GOP has “no accomplishments, no plans, and no vision” for America at the moment, warning that this could lead to massive defeats in the 2026 midterm elections.
“Why on earth would anyone be excited to go vote for them 12 months right now?” Davis wondered.
At the same time, he didn’t let the White House off the hook, urging the president to focus his attention on coming up with a comprehensive economic plan that would address the affordability crisis that young Americans find themselves in.
“Trump needs to ditch the foreign policy crap and focus all his attention on the domestic economy, which is still not working for the majority of people,” he wrote. “Right now he looks weak and rudderless. Be mad all you want, but it’s the truth.”
Davis added: “Newly minted college grads can’t find work and are saddled with debt. Where is their path to the American dream right now? Who is giving them a vision of a future worth fighting for?”
He went on to say that you “cannot have a viable country or future when half your country and all its young people are locked out of the economy and locked out of ever owning a home or much of anything beyond next month’s streaming subscription.” Furthermore, he asked if anyone in Washington cares about this topic, which voters cited as the most important and pressing issue during last week’s elections.
“Republicans had better wake up, because right now their nightmare is only beginning if they don’t start making massive changes,” Davis concluded.
The MAGA media executive isn’t the only one in the conservative media ecosphere sounding the alarm for the GOP and Trump world ahead of next year’s elections and the 2028 presidential race.
Noting the president’s tendency to downplay the continued high inflation reports while insisting that his tariffs are boosting the American economy, Fox Business correspondent Charles Gasparino warned that Trump could be in for a rude awakening from the voting public.
“I really think the Trump Admin is playing with fire by tacitly accepting 3% inflation as the new normal. It's literally a tax increase in the middle and working class, all to use tariffs as a temporary revenue generator (yes temporary because the longer term econ impact is an economic slowdown induced by inflation),” he posted on X.
“Sure the top line econ numbers look good as they did during the Biden years, but thats being generated by spending from the top 1% of earners who are in the markets that have been powered by a handful of tech/AI stocks,” Gasparino continued. “We're seeing warning signs of this shortsightedness in the recent election results. We could see more in the midterms.”
Gasparino’s tweet comes days after the president was challenged on affordability by Fox News anchor Bret Baier, who read a message from a Trump voter who begged Trump to “please do something” as “Wall Street numbers do not reflect my Main Street money.” The president, however, once again claimed that prices are “down already.”
While Trump has suddenly tried to seize the “affordability” message from Democrats in recent days, despite still falsely asserting that grocery prices are “way down” and shrugging off Americans’ real concerns about rising costs, he has also come across as increasingly out of touch.
The week before the election, for instance, he took a trip to Asia and bragged about the massive trade deals he was brokering while federal workers were missing paychecks and millions of low-income Americans were set to lose food benefits due to the ongoing government shutdown.
In fact, the Trump administration continues to refuse to pay for food stamps this month, despite a federal court ordering it to fund SNAP in full, all while demanding that states “undo” their work to send out benefits.
Meanwhile, after returning from his Asia trip, the president held an opulent Great Gatsby-themed party at his Mar-a-Lago resort. On top of that, after demolishing the East Wing of the White House to make room for a $300 million ballroom, Trump also continually posted on Truth Social about remodeling the Lincoln bathroom with new marble and gold fixtures, along with his plans to renovate the Kennedy Center with “magnificent high end carpeting.”
Recent polls show that Trump’s approval ratings are plummeting, especially on how voters feel he is handling the economy and inflation. Much as Biden did when inflation hit its peak in 2022-23, when he insisted the economy was booming despite public complaints about rising costs, the president is seeing his numbers bottom out.
Still, Trump isn’t the only one feeling heat from his base. Less than a week after basking in the overwhelming victories in statewide and local elections, liberal voters and progressive activists are irate at Senate Democrats for “caving” to Trump and Republicans in negotiating an end to the shutdown without securing an extension of Obamacare tax credits.
“We’re three weeks out from the largest protest in American history, less than one week out from a stunningly successful election nationwide,” Indivisible cofounder Leah Greenberg told The Independent, referencing last month’s “No Kings” rallies. “What on Earth does the base have to do to convince Dems they need to fight?”
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