President Trump’s endorsement, once a golden ticket in Republican primaries, has turned into a lead weight as the clock winds down on his second term.
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In a column for The Hill, longtime Fox News contributor Juan Williams wrote that the president’s declining influence is matched by declining mental faculties as he has been observed “visibly struggling to stay awake and then weaving in and out of coherent answers.”
Adding, had “Joe Biden delivered similar performances, Republicans would almost certainly have demanded impeachment or invocation of the 25th Amendment,” Williams suggested that evidence is “piling up that Trump’s dominance over Republican politics is coming to an end,” and that the president’s “magical hold on the party is also wearing thin.”
As he noted, in Minnesota this month, My Pillow founder Mike Lindell lost the GOP governor primary to Lisa Demuth despite Trump’s backing and years spent amplifying Trump’s false 2020 election-fraud claims. In Michigan, Trump-endorsed congressional candidate Amir Hassan lost his primary to a rival who had already dropped out of the race, and in Tennessee, Trump-endorsed Rep. Andy Ogles lost his primary to Charlie Hatcher by “roughly seven points,” days after Trump personally stumped for him via livestream town hall.
Trump’s political troubles extend beyond the ballot box for Republicans.
Labeling the president as a man “on the run” and now haunted by “perceptions of weakness,” Williams wrote that his days as a “kingmaker” seem to have run their course with Democrats poised to take control of one or both of the chambers of Congress.
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“Imagine the diminished political reality he faces with a Democratic majority in one or both chambers of Congress,” he suggested. “Every headline will be about subpoenas and investigations into Trump’s sudden rise in personal wealth during his second term as well as efforts to reverse policies if not impeach him.”
He pointed out “there are striking echoes between the midterms of 2026 and 2006.”
“Both Republican presidents faced an unpopular and costly war in the Middle East, first in Iraq and now in Iran. Both had to answer for the specter of a broad financial crisis,” the Fox News analyst asked, “So, is the Trump era finally coming to an end? Is it over?”
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