Republicans put on notice as Trump eyes 'norm-shattering' midterm plot

The Republican Party must stand against Donald Trump's midterm plot as best they can, a political analyst has warned.

Whether the GOP representatives actively call out the president for recent, unprecedented actions is yet to be seen. Nathaniel Rakich, writing for Salon, warned that Trump may call on the troops in 2026, as he had wanted to in 2020. Trump deployed thousands of National Guard personnel in Washington, D.C., shortly after the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

The controversy at the time does not appear to have affected Trump, who Rakich believes will call in further federal agents in the lead up to the midterms. He wrote, "The November midterms will be the first federal general election with Trump as president since that 2020 contest, and even before his comments to the Times, plenty of people were already worried that Trump would attempt to deploy the National Guard around the 2026 election."

Whether Trump attempts to use the National Guard around the midterms is yet to be seen, but his previous rhetoric has some worried he will.

Rakich called on Republicans to stand against Trump should he do so, writing, "And while the path to the U.S. Senate majority does mostly run through red states, and Republicans have, on the whole, not shown much interest in standing up to Trump, it’s not a given that every Republican governor would acquiesce to Trump sending in troops — especially for as norm-shattering a reason as to police an election."

A post from The New York Times highlighted how multiple GOP politicians had privately criticized Trump but had not made any comment publicly.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told Republican Party donors they would be met with an election "bloodbath" should they back Trump's tariff policy.

“Trump was in a bad mood – I've been in conversations where he was very happy. This was not one of them,” Cruz can be heard saying in the leaked audio to a room of donors, Axios reported.

“[I said to Trump,] Mr. President, if we get to November of [2026] and people's 401(k)s are down 30% and prices are up 10–20% at the supermarket, we're going to go into Election Day, face a bloodbath. You're going to lose the House, you're going to lose the Senate, you're going to spend the next two years being impeached every single week.”

“F--- you, Ted,” Trump apparently responded, Cruz could be heard telling donors in the audio recording.