The former White House press secretary told Fox News that Republicans need a new “America first” figure at the top of the ticket, as the party reckons with losing both chambers of Congress.
Karoline Leavitt, the former White House press secretary, has said Democrats succeeded in the midterms by following the approach Donald Trump used to win over voters. Speaking to Lara Trump on Fox News on Saturday, she said Republicans now have to “grapple” with the fact that Mr Trump will never again be at the top of the ticket. Democrats won both the House and the Senate in the election. Ms Leavitt said the party needs a new candidate who can connect with people in the same way.
“It just has to be a new person at the top of the ticket”
Ms Leavitt credited Democrats with inspiring people to vote, while giving her former boss credit for the template. “This is a reality that Republicans have to grapple with, right? President Trump wasn’t on the ballot in these midterms, he’ll never be at the top of the ticket again,” she said.
She said Republicans need “somebody who is America first, who can really tap into the forgotten men and women who President Trump drew to the Republican Party in a historic way from 2016 all the way through 2024”. Such a figure, she said, must be able to speak to people about their struggles and challenges, and offer “promise and hope”.
“I think that’s something Democrats did well in this election in the midterms,” she added. “They obviously inspired people to turn out to vote because they made the people feel like we’re going to make your lives better. We need to do that again, the same way, the same fashion President Trump did. It just has to be a new person at the top of the ticket.”
Asked by Ms Trump whether voters would ever see her run for office again, Ms Leavitt replied: “No ma’am, I am good!” She stood for a Congressional seat in New Hampshire in 2022 and lost to Chris Pappas. Mr Pappas has now been elected a senator and is described as the first openly gay senator-elect in American history.
On election night, Ms Leavitt blamed the result on voters forgetting Mr Trump’s “good policy” and listening to “the lying media”.
Doubts over cross-party co-operation
Ms Leavitt praised some of the Democrats’ post-election comments. She pointed to James Talarico, who flipped Texas and was elected senator, saying that the morning after the election he said: “I want to work with President Trump on behalf of Texas.”
“I think that’s a great thing, we should have more Republicans and Democrats working together where we can, but do I think it’s going to happen? No, I don’t,” she said.
She cited Robert Garcia’s reaction as evidence. “You had Rep. Garcia’s first statement after election night was ‘Lawyer up,’” she said. “This is a party whose base is hellbent on political retribution, obstructionism, impeachment. They don’t want to do what’s best for the voters who elected them.”
What Garcia has said
Mr Garcia, a California congressman who sits on the House Oversight Committee, issued the “Lawyer up” warning to the President and his family. He told the journalist and attorney Aaron Parnas: “If you are part of that family, you have been involved in grift and we’ve seen that.”
He pointed to the wedding of Donald Trump Jr, held earlier this year and funded by a Russian oligarch. The bride, Bettina, addressed the rumours by posting previously unseen photographs on 14 September, in which she described the Russian national as “our dear friend Umar”. Mr Garcia also suggested that all of Mr Trump’s sons could be investigated for sitting on the boards of companies “getting, essentially, contracts from the Pentagon”. He listed “crypto schemes” and Jared Kushner’s relationship with Saudi Arabia as further areas to examine, adding that “the list goes on and on and on”.
Garcia on Stephen Miller
Mr Garcia repeated the “lawyer up” message on Friday after it emerged that Susie Wiles had left her role as White House chief of staff and would be replaced by her senior aide, Stephen Miller.
“Just days after the American people rejected his corrupt and lawless presidency, Donald Trump is doubling down,” Mr Garcia said. “Stephen Miller is the architect of the unconstitutional ICE raids that have terrorized our communities and kidnapped and killed American citizens and immigrant families. Oversight Democrats will continue to investigate Miller for his misconduct, and we will fight against his hateful policies in Congress and the courts. Stephen Miller should lawyer up.”
