President Donald Trump is reportedly delusional about the extent of his role in the GOP’s devastating defeat in the 2026 midterm elections. White House correspondent Kristen Holmes gave CNN’s Jake Tapper intel on what Trump believes fueled the loss. Trump says it’s because his name wasn’t on the ballot and that others are to blame. In the days leading up to Election Day, Trump’s biggest ask of his MAGA base was that supporters treat it as though he were on the ballot. But despite his efforts to rally his loyalists, the results didn’t go his way.
“Behind the scenes, we’ve seen an enormous amount of finger-pointing and blame-shifting,” Holmes told Tapper. “In terms of the president himself, he has continued to say, and that includes behind closed doors, that he believes the reason Republicans lost was not a rebuke of him, but because, in fact, he was not actually on the ballot,” Holmes added.
Trump has claimed in his comments since the fallout that had he been on the ballot, he would have come out victorious. Holmes says Trump points to his rallies as proof of his popularity, but argues they are not an accurate measure of his public support.
“And I do want to note one thing here, Jake. He keeps talking about the size of the rallies, saying, ‘I saw all these people, and they did not come out to vote for the candidate,’” Holmes said. “But I went to a number of these rallies, and I interviewed those voters, and they were people who were already going to vote Republican. So it’s unclear that that’s really what happened here, that they didn’t transfer the love over to the candidates.”
As Trump’s meltdown continues, Holmes says he’s naming who he feels is responsible for the loss. “A lot of it… pointing towards the war in Iran and those who encouraged it, including Pete Hegseth, the secretary of defense,” Holmes said. Things are said to be so bad that Hegseth has offered to be the sacrificial lamb.
“Now, Pete Hegseth has told the White House he’s willing to answer for any decisions made. But there are Republicans, and a growing number of them, who are turning against the secretary of defense, essentially saying things out loud that they were unwilling to say several months ago,” Holmes added, noting Hegseth played a big role in Trump going to Iran.
“President Trump himself, he has defended Hegseth. He has said he’s his best guy — privately and publicly,” Holmes told Tapper. “But he’s also been asking quite a number of allies now what they think of Hegseth[‘s] performance.”