‘Attack, Attack, Attack’: Trump’s Top Midterm Strategist Vows to Lead Onslaught Against Dems

(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

James Blair, the White House deputy chief of staff who’s planning on taking a leave of absence from the Trump administration to lead Trump’s midterm operation, laid out his aggressive strategy for the GOP in new interview with Politico’s Dasha Burns.

After taking a victory lap over Republicans’ gains in the redistricting wars and vowing that they wouldn’t be outspent without pledging to use Trump’s war chest, Blair was asked, “What should we expect in the coming weeks and months?”

He replied:

We’ve cleared most primaries. Our guys aren’t beating each other up for the most part. They’re raising a bunch of money and building war chests, whereas their guys are not doing that, right? … They have incumbents getting attacked from the left, while we have a candidate who’s just sitting there building a war chest, endorsed with a clear field. We’ve also got incumbents like Mike Lawler, who’s facing a handful of people who are all killing each other while he builds his war chest. …

The Democrats are tied up in a complete ideological party split, tearing themselves apart. … They just blew $80 million on their illegal Virginia fiasco. Hakeem Jeffries humiliated himself with his big press conference two weeks ago just to be crushed in the couple weeks since. Their party is divided, they don’t have confidence in their leadership, their candidates are fighting themselves, they are wasting their money. These are all good situations for us that help us get a little closer to the prize.

Burns and Blair continued:

BURNS: Let’s talk about the war. People are not happy with the policy of this administration. And yes, things could change by November, but they might not. How do you contend with that?

BLAIR: Well, the Democrats will have to convince the electorate how they’re going to make their lives more affordable when they tried to raise taxes on 90 percent of Americans by $4 trillion last summer. They are all on the record for tax hikes. They’ve opposed every single tax cut. That’s going to be a tough message to stick in the center of the electorate who already don’t like Democrats. And that’s just the beginning of the contrasts we will make with them. Swing voters already think the Democratic Party’s too far left, and we’re going to make sure voters know just how far left they are. They are woke, weak and way too liberal. And the whole country will be reminded of that.

BURNS: So going on the attack is a big part of the strategy

BLAIR: It’s always the strategy. Attack, attack, attack. And when in doubt, attack some more. The best defense is a great offense.

Blair previously suggested that Republicans could pull off a massive upset this November and hold on to both chambers of Congress, even after Democrats’ short-lived celebration of their victory in Virginia’s redistricting referendum.

“This is a state in November of 2025 that went by 15 points to the Democrats for governor and about eight points for attorney general. Last night, this was a three-point race. That’s actually a three-point overperformance of the Trump 2024 historic performance in Virginia. So just as a baseline for all the Democrats crowing this morning. If Republicans perform anywhere near on average the way they did in Virginia last night, we not only add seats to the Senate, but we add seats to the House, and we have a historic midterm,” Blair told CNN’s Dana Bash last month. “It was very close last night. There’s a backlash to the fact that they were not honest, and the same is going to be true in November. They don’t have policies to run on, they don’t have a vision to run. We’re going to make them litigate the question of their policies in November. And again, if it turns out the way it did last night, Democrats are not going to win the majority in either chamber.”

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