The Morning Briefing: Trump Might Just Have Enough Spine for the Entire GOP

Top O' the Briefing

Happy Thursday, dear Kruiser Morning Briefing friends. The Sine Qua Non Sequitur is spending the day critiquing pasta shapes with a traveling group of avant-garde bison groomers.

This will probably be a recurring variation on a theme here at the Briefing between now and when the final votes of the midterms are counted during halftime of the Super Bowl next February. It is important to remind ourselves of the fighting chance that Republican candidates have while President Trump is still leading this party. More on that in a bit.

As I have written many times, President Trump is trying to teach the Republican Party not only to want to win more, but how to go about doing so. Pre-Trump, the GOP was willing to take its victories on whichever schedule that historical trends dictated it should. If there had been a Democrat in the White House for two terms, then it was the Republicans' turn, for example. Conventional wisdom regarding historical electoral trends has been roughed up a bit in the Trump era. I'm not saying that none of it applies, I'm saying that maybe those trends aren't worth betting on anymore, even if you're drunk, flush with cash, and lacking inhibition.

If President Trump wants to apply his efforts to an election and make it interesting, he will. He made the Senate Republican primary runoff in South Carolina interesting, which Rick wrote about yesterday:

Graham made an unforced, rookie mistake in the one debate between her and her primary opponent, Rep. Ralph Norman, last week. She admitted she didn't know a lot about foreign policy, specifically Taiwan.
Norman must have thought the electoral gods were on his side. "By her choice, she's running for the United States Senate. It's a six-year term. You need to get fully versed in what issues you're going to be dealing with. This isn't a get training on the job, you can't do that."
After that gaffe, some political observers believed it would take a miracle for Graham to pull off a victory.
Enter a miracle.
Donald Trump rode to Graham's rescue on Friday, showing up at the Myrtle Beach Convention Center and, before an enthusiastic house, gave a ringing endorsement for Darline. He defended her debate gaffe by arguing that she was simply "being honest" rather than offering a typical politician's response.

Rick sets all of that up by covering some of the negative press and polling that the Trump mystique is dealing with. The Democrats' flying monkeys in the mainstream media and the Nate Silvers of the world want Trump supporters to despair. This kind of negativity worked wonders for them in the past — few things in politics used to be easier than getting emo Republicans and conservatives to not vote.

The hardcore MAGA faithful won't fall for the garbage "woe is Trump" approach, of course. What the Dems are hoping to do with it is win back some disaffected Democrats and/or get independent voters who were in Trump's corner in 2024 to go full Eeyore and not bother. This is why I say it's critical that we keep thinking of all the narratives and negative polling that Trump has triumphed over before.

"But Kruiser, President Trump isn't on the ballot in November."

I wrote this in the Briefing earlier in the month:

In my latest column, I wrote that the Democrats are acting as if President Trump is on the ballot in November. The DNC types have been pretty open about wanting to tie every Republican candidate to the president. They seem to believe that if they say "MAGA" over and over, the voters won't know that they're out of ideas.
The bad news for the Democrats, but great news for the Republicans, is that President Trump will be campaigning for GOP candidates as if he were on the ballot. He's already warming up.

After helping Darline Graham pull an electoral rabbit out of the hat, he's running red hot now.

President Trump isn't out there trying to help Republican candidates out of some tired sense of obligation. He's on a mission, and has been since he first ran for office. He has been trying to remake the GOP and has had a lot of success doing so. He also knows that there is a lot of work to do, and that his time to do it is running out.

The mission isn't just about ego, as his detractors would have us believe. Yes, he has a big ego; it's a common trait in people who achieve great things. It is a tool in his arsenal, though, not the thing that gets him out of bed in the morning. More than any man alive, President Trump knows that this country can't survive suffering through an extended run of the Dems being in charge. He's the one who has been trying to repair the monumental damage done by Joe Biden and his puppet masters. Saving the country from more of that is why he wants Republicans to win.

No matter what the media hacks say, Trump's looming presence in this midterm year is in no way a liability. His willingness and ability to fight can't guarantee election success, of course, but they give the GOP reason for hope.

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POTUS Press Today

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
08/26/26

DAILY GUIDANCE AND PRESS SCHEDULE FOR
THURSDAY, AUGUST 27, 2026

In-Town Pool
TV Corr & Crew: CNN
Secondary TV Corr: PBS
Photos: AP, AFP, NYT, Reuters, Getty
Print: Axios
Secondary Print: Newsweek
Radio: AP
New Media: Border Hawk

Out-of-Town Travel Pool
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Secondary TV Corr: Scripps
Photos: AP, AFP, NYT, Reuters, Getty
Print: Washington Post
Secondary Print: Bloomberg
Radio: BBC
New Media: Semafor

EDT:
9:00 AM In-Town Pool Call Time
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8:00 AM THE PRESIDENT participates in Executive Time
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Closed Press

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1:30 PM THE PRESIDENT participates in Signing Time
Oval Office
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THE PRESIDENT departs the White House en route Houston, Texas
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Restricted Pool

CDT:
THE PRESIDENT arrives Houston, Texas
Houston, Texas
Pre-Credentialed Media

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