MAGA media is grappling with GOP’s crushing defeat — and tiptoeing around Trump

On President Donald Trump’s favorite TV shows, there is none of the election denialism that characterized his 2020 loss. But there is a whole lot of disbelief — and some early signs of disagreement about the best path forward for the Republican Party. On Wednesday night the banner on Jesse Watters’ Fox News show asked “HOW DID THIS HAPPEN?” while Watters offered his answers: “Ultimately the election turned on the Iran war and to a certain extent the trade war,” he said, calling it a “two-punch combo.” Watters said “corruption was also a motivator” and “the Epstein files left a bad taste in people’s mouths.” Watters didn’t drill into Trump’s responsibility for any of that, however. For the most part, right-wing commentators are handling the president and his ego with kid gloves, lest they anger the viewer-in-chief and his still-loyal base. Podcaster Ben Shapiro went further than most on Wednesday, first extolling Trump for being “totally impervious” to criticism, then saying “there is a thin line between being impervious to bad criticism and being totally out of touch.” Fox host Laura Ingraham also tiptoed around that out-of-touch concern. “To me, it’s pretty simple,” she said. Voters “want things to get cheaper, and they generally, I think, want things to kind of calm down. And they hate war. And I mean hate war. Especially if it means that they have to pay more.” After acknowledging the GOP’s losses, many right-wing programs and podcasts made a familiar pivot to denigrating Democrats, especially newly elected senators like James Talarico and Abdul El-Sayed. Commentators called them “commies,” “crazy people” and dozens of other insults. On Fox’s “The Five,” Watters exclaimed, “They voted for Tala-freak-o, man! They voted for Abdul bluh-bluh-bluh-bluh-bluh Mohammed! No one can really wrap their head around that.” Commentators on other networks have had no trouble explaining it. But while those analysts have placed most of the blame for the midterm rebuke on the president himself, Trump-devoted TV hosts and influencers have faulted people around Trump for letting him down. This is a default setting for MAGA media: Trump can’t be wrong; he can only be wronged. The GOP “has failed to follow his leadership,” Blaine Holt, a retired Air Force brigadier general, said on Newsmax Wednesday night. On “The Five,” Emily Compagno blamed unproductive GOP lawmakers for causing a blue wave: For two years “Congress had the tools, they had the majorities, and they used none of that.” Watters’ guest Caroline Sunshine said that White House chief of staff Susie Wiles “needs to resign” because “her campaign skills have not translated to governing.” At times the MAGA media aversion to blaming Trump personally is taken to a comic extreme. Radio host Steve Deace was ridiculed on social media for blaming Trump’s staff for his bizarre construction site photo op on Wednesday afternoon. “Whoever thought it was a good idea after last night’s results to send the president out the next day to tout his ballroom should be fired and never work in politics again, and perhaps even in prison forever like on the moon,” Deace wrote. Numerous commenters responded and said it was obvious that Trump sent himself out to brag about the ballroom. On Fox Wednesday night, Trump ally Sean Hannity – who recently held his wedding rehearsal dinner at Mar-a-Lago so that Trump could attend – discouraged the GOP from “finger-pointing” about the party’s failures. Hannity’s new bride, Ainsley Earhardt, was similarly dismissive: “This is normal. This is what happens usually in a midterm,” she said Wednesday morning, even though political experts have pointed out that this year’s wipeout is the worst in decades. Ex-Fox host Tucker Carlson, who has become an outspoken Trump critic on the right, had a very different reaction to the results. He said on his podcast that it’s a necessary reckoning for the party and spent more than an hour talking through it. “This is the end of the Trump era,” Carlson said, evincing little regret. There’s been none of that talk on Fox. On Wednesday night Hannity repeatedly reassured his viewers that the Democrats in Congress would “overreach” and provoke “buyer’s remorse.” And Ingraham said Trump’s “greatest moments may lie ahead.”