Republicans privately worry his self-focus complicates November elections
President Trump is spending much of his time on construction projects and physical reminders of his time in office — from a White House ballroom to a proposed triumphal arch — while his approval ratings sag and Republicans privately worry that his self-focus is complicating their efforts to hold Congress in November, according to his advisers and party officials.
Trump’s senior advisers have for months tried to redirect his attention to the economy, the issue voters say they care about most, according to people familiar with the matter. But the president’s focus frequently drifts elsewhere, from his building projects to attacks on his perceived political enemies, according to those close to him.
One senior administration official said the president has entered what the official called “legacy mode.” The president is fixated on how he will be remembered by future generations, conscious of avoiding the fate of past occupants of the White House he views as weak, such as Jimmy Carter, according to aides.
The legacy efforts are visible across Washington. Trump is working on a White House ballroom, a proposed triumphal arch, and a “Presidential Walk of Fame” exhibit that lines the White House colonnade, where he hand-selected portraits of his predecessors and edited the accompanying plaques. Earlier this month he showed reporters a new South Lawn helipad and told them the stone he selected would last 1 million years. He has put his name and face on limited-edition passports, national park passes, and a forthcoming commemorative $1 coin.
“He is one of the handful of presidents who thinks on an entirely historic scale,” said Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker and a current Trump confidant. “He wants to be consequential. He wants this to matter. He wants to be the kind of president who people say, you know, it mattered that he was president.”
White House spokesman Davis Ingle defended the president’s priorities, saying Trump is “solely focused” on delivering prosperity and peace. “The only legacy President Trump is concerned with is making America greater than ever before,” Ingle said, adding that “when all is said and done, this president will undoubtedly go down as the most successful and consequential president in modern American history.”
Meanwhile, Republicans face an uphill battle to maintain their congressional majorities. A super PAC aligned with Trump, MAGA Inc., has raised more than $400 million but has not yet deployed the funds at scale, frustrating many in the party. The group recently spent more than $800,000 on get-out-the-vote calls and text messages supporting Republican Sen. Darline Graham in South Carolina, where she bested a GOP challenger earlier this week. Trump had encouraged Graham to run to succeed her late brother, Lindsey Graham, and a loss in the state would have been an embarrassment for the president. Some Republicans privately complained that the group’s first significant spending in months went to a runoff between two Republicans in a state Trump won in 2024 and that neither party views as competitive in November.
Trump plans to put himself at the center of the midterms. He has told advisers he wants to produce a series of television ads centered on his agenda, according to people familiar with the matter. During a Fox News interview this week, Trump urged his supporters to “pretend I’m on the ballot.” His allies said the president is confident that the tax cuts he signed into law will resonate with voters, and he contends he remains the party’s most powerful political force.
Some Republicans worry that Trump is not concerned about the political blowback they could face from his actions. When Republican leadership struggled to build consensus around legislation imposing strict new voter-eligibility rules, a senior administration official said Trump did not care how the debate would affect members running for re-election because he was focused on his long-term legacy.
Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who campaigned in support of a second Trump term and regularly advised Trump until they broke over the war, said: “He chose his legacy, and it’s the war with Iran, the fall of the American empire, and the destruction of the U.S. economy.”
An unpopular war in the Middle East has put pressure on the U.S. economy, strained U.S. standing on the world stage, and pulled Trump’s poll numbers to historic lows. Republicans now face the possibility of losing not just the House but the Senate, and the possibility of a third impeachment if Democrats regain control of Congress now haunts the White House.
The president’s attention has at times drifted to other matters. While Republicans were campaigning across the country this week, Trump was escalating his trade feud with Canada. During an Oval Office executive-order signing, he directed the government to change the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America.”
Conservative talk-radio host Erick Erickson, who has increasingly criticized Trump in recent months, wrote on social media: “Now picture the American voter who was on the sidelines Tuesday, arms folded, undecided about the midterms, who read that headline and thought, ‘Well, now I’m voting Republican.’ You cannot picture him because he does not exist.”
The shift in Trump’s thinking about his postpresidency is itself notable. Aides avoided broaching the topic of a presidential library during his time out of office because they believed it signaled the end of his power and feared it would upset him. He now talks openly about plans to build one, the latest sign of a president contemplating life after the White House. One aide said Trump has become a reader of presidential biographies in his second term. The “Presidential Walk of Fame” exhibit offers an early forecast of how Trump sees his own legacy: in place of a portrait of Joe Biden, there is a photograph of an autopen and a plaque claiming that Trump’s immediate predecessor “was, by far, the worst president in American history.” The entry for Trump reads: “At his Inauguration, President Trump announced the beginning of the ‘Golden Age of America,’ and he delivered.”