Tamara Keith and Amy Walter talk about the response to Trump’s policies

Amna Nawaz:

President Trump is beginning to face some pushback on several fronts, including from within his own party.

To discuss that and more, we now turn to analysis of our Monday political duo. This is The Cook Policy Report’s Amy Walter with NPR’s Amy Walter and Tamara Keith.

Great to see you both.

Amy Walter, Cook Political Report:

Hello.

Tamara Keith, NPR:

It’s good to be here.

Amna Nawaz:

So let’s talk about Liz Landers’ report earlier on the push by Indiana Republicans to redistrict.

Tam, as you well know, the President has been very vocal about this. He strong-armed the effort, threatening political retaliation. But, as Liz mentioned, Republicans there aren’t even sure they’ll have the right to vote. So what’s at stake for the president and Republicans there?

Tamara Keith:

Well, there’s a lot at stake for the president. He doesn’t want to lose the House of Representatives next year. As we saw in a series of off-year special elections seen this year, Democrats led by about 13 points.

If you take all the Republicans who won by less than 13 points, you will find that there are a large number of Republicans in the House. So there is a very real problem. And that’s part of the reason why President Trump is kind of trying to change the rules of the game.

But it also creates challenges. When you change lines in the middle of a decade, you tamper with the districts in favor of the incumbents. Some people don’t want that to happen. You’re also taking really safe seats and making them a little less safe, so you can theoretically get more seats.

This also triggered what we saw in California. There is now talk in Virginia about redrawing the lines there once Abigail Spanberger takes office in January. So there – basically, by opening this Pandora’s box…

Amna Nawaz:

Yes.

Tamara Keith:

…It is not clear now whether the president has actually made much progress.

Amy Walter:

Yes, I think that’s exactly what’s happening, in our calculations at the Cook Political Report, even if the Indiana map passes, after all this and all the pressure by Republicans and the president to attract more seats, the Republicans will likely not get more than two seats.

If Indiana doesn’t make it, it’s even. It’s basically a wash. So, for me, it’s not a question of how desperate he is to get two more seats. It was much more about showing that he was still in power, and that the idea that people would back down from him, if they did, that there would be consequences, hence the truth posts on social media, and the threats that had to be in the first place.

I think all the heavy lifting is really about the president, first, his need to win psychologically, much more than he needs to maintain control of the House, and second, to send a signal to other Republicans that if they deviate from the president’s wishes, there will be consequences for that.

Amna Nawaz:

And speaking of Republicans who have deviated from Republican desires — or the president’s desires, we saw Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene speak publicly for the first time since she said she would step down from office in a 60 Minutes interview.

Tam, you know, she went from being a MAGA loyalist, and publicly broke with the president. In that interview, she talked about the difference between the way some of her Republican colleagues talk about the president behind closed doors versus speaking publicly. I listen.

Lesley Stahl, CBS News:

Do they talk differently behind the scenes?

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia):

Yes.

Lesley Stahl:

how?

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene:

Oh, it’s – it’s going to shock people.

Lesley Stahl:

Well, let’s shock people.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene:

Yes.

I watched many of my colleagues go from making fun of him, making fun of the way he spoke, constantly making fun of me for supporting him, to, when he won the primary in 2024, they all started, pardon my language, Leslie, kissing him (EXPLETIVE deleted) and deciding to wear a MAGA hat for the first time.

Amna Nawaz:

Tam, as you know, hours after that broadcast, President Trump criticized Greene on TRUTH Social – TRUTH Social, instead, calling her a bad apple and a stupid person. How do you look at all this?

Tamara Keith:

And “Traitor Green.”

So this is a story as old as time or as long as Trump has been on the political stage. I’ve heard Republicans talk about how different it is in private than what people say in public. And I did it, I brought it out into the open. She openly expresses her frustration with him.

This is what prompts him to criticize. She says she’s received threats and all these other things that many people have experienced, defamation and beatings and all these things that many people involved in politics who have been on the wrong side of Donald Trump have experienced.

She decides to pull out the umbrella and leave Congress early, which actually creates a lot more problems for the president and his party in the House than if she stayed and got beaten and fought a primary and won or lost or whatever.

So, in a way, she’s actually hurting him more by leaving Congress than by staying there.

Amna Nawaz:

How do you see this playing out?

Amy Walter:

I also thought it was interesting in this interview, when Lesley Stahl asked her, do you consider yourself a MAGA Republican, she said, I consider myself America’s front-runner.

Amna Nawaz:

Yes.

Amy Walter:

And what would be great, especially as we start post-midterms and start talking about the presidential race and who’s going to run for president in 2028, you can see this possibility of there being two paths.

Who is the MAGA president – the presidential candidate, that is, the person who might have Trump’s blessing, who would try to run on a different path, maybe call it America First or something like that? So, this path wouldn’t be so much anti-Trump as it would be something that doesn’t seem consistent with Donald Trump himself or some of his policies.

Amna Nawaz:

Tam, in terms of what we’ve seen from the president when it comes to messaging on one of the biggest issues for voters, which is affordability, we’ll now have him go to Pennsylvania tomorrow to talk about this. The whole affordability concern is something President Trump has called a false narrative created by Democrats.

There was a recent Fox News poll, I should point out, that said 46% of voters say the president’s economic policies have hurt them. 15% say they helped him, or rather helped them. How do you view the president’s decision to talk about this matter now?

Tamara Keith:

This is long overdue.

In fact, President Trump has held many events at the White House where he held his sessions in the Cabinet Room or the Oval Office and took questions about a wide range of things. But he and his administration, well, administration officials are out on the road, but no one notices, because President Trump is getting all the attention and all the oxygen.

But President Trump himself, I’ve been back on his travels throughout this year as president. He had fewer than six message-related events. Only two of those were economics in terms of going out on the road, pitching his policies to the American people, going to a swing state and a swing district, which is what he’ll do tomorrow.

He did a little of that. He attended more sporting events than he did to promote his policies on the economy or sell the country’s big beautiful bill. This is a transformation. A senior White House official told me there was going to be a lot of this, but they’ve been telling me that for a month.

So, we’ll see what gets added and where President Trump is welcomed, because as his approval ratings decline, there will likely come a time when there will be Republicans in tough seats who say: Thank you very much, I wish you weren’t here.

Amna Nawaz:

Amy?

Amy Walter:

Well, underlying all of this is the challenge that his very policies, as we saw in this article on soybeans, are causing prices to rise, voters believe.

So, it’s not just that they think that as president he was doing certain things or not doing certain things. The one thing that is very important to the president, the issue of tariffs, carries a lot of weight. Without this weight or unless it is reduced, it will be very difficult to sell affordability.

Amna Nawaz:

Amy Walter, Tamara Creath – Keith, it’s always great to see you two together. Thank you very much.

Amy Walter:

You’re welcome.

Tamara Keith:

You’re welcome.