By Adam Cancryn, Sarah Ferris, CNN
(CNN) — House Republicans crowded into the Kennedy Center on Tuesday to hear President Donald Trump lay out his vision for the consequential midterm year ahead.
Instead, they got plenty of grievances — and little sense of a plan.
Trump, in a meandering speech that stretched for over an hour, recounted a range of personal slights, attacked lawmakers in both parties and complained repeatedly about not getting the credit he feels he’s owed for orchestrating “the most successful first year of any president in history.”
He celebrated the decision to take charge of Venezuela without offering details for how the administration will “run” the country long term, ordered lawmakers to “figure it out” when it comes to spikes in health care premiums, and never once uttered the word “affordability” despite widespread acknowledgement that control of Congress will hinge on the cost-of-living crisis.
Already, the White House’s fresh entanglement in Venezuela and talk of expanding its reach throughout the Western Hemisphere has threatened to complicate a promised pivot by Trump to core domestic priorities.
And while Trump insisted that the GOP could still pull off a stunning victory in November and overcome the historical trend of presidents losing seats in midterm elections, he indicated at times that he nevertheless fears voters will ultimately let him down.
“I wish you could explain to me what the hell’s going on with the mind of the public,” he said, later musing gloomily that “it’s almost like ‘What have you done lately’ is the way you have to run your life.”
The freewheeling address underscored the steep challenges facing House Republicans as they kicked off an all-day retreat aimed at coalescing behind their next legislative priorities and salvaging their midterm fortunes.
Notably, Trump reiterated his support for House Speaker Mike Johnson despite a rocky tenure in recent months, offering a sign of much-needed cohesion at the top for the GOP. But even so, the speech confirmed that Trump – after a year spent asserting his influence over the GOP-controlled Congress – would not soon be the one delivering them answers.
The president instead lamented the party’s struggle to gain traction with voters after a year filled with policy overhauls that have reshaped broad swaths of American life, blaming poor GOP messaging and an uncooperative mainstream press.
He urged Republicans to promote their sweeping tax and spending cuts law more enthusiastically and talk up the administration’s efforts to cut drug prices, insisting the pair of initiatives had given them “so much ammunition.”
“I think I gave you something,” Trump said, while acknowledging he hadn’t read anything off his teleprompter. “It’s a roadmap to victory. You have so many good nuggets, you have to use them.”
The one new pitch that Trump did make risks further complicating dynamics in the GOP: to be more flexible about the party’s insistence on a policy that prevents federal dollars from paying for abortions.
The so-called Hyde amendment has been a sticking point in negotiations over a health care compromise, but abandoning it would likely spark heavy blowback from anti-abortion groups and social conservatives. Trump also encouraged the GOP to embrace his 2024 campaign promise around in vitro fertilization, a move that could generate similar opposition from that faction.
Yet Trump has remained vague on how Republicans should seek to turn around voters’ opinions of the centerpiece tax-and-spending bill that united the GOP but that polling shows most Americans view negatively, or bolster awareness of his complicated drug price deals that have yet to make any sizable impact.
And perhaps most importantly for Republican lawmakers facing an increasingly tough electoral map, Trump offered little guidance on how to address the affordability issues now dominating the political landscape.
“You’ve got to work something, you’ve got to use ingenuity,” he told lawmakers Tuesday of their failed efforts to avoid rising Affordable Care Act premiums. “You can own health care. Let’s figure it out.”
Those deepening cost-of-living dilemmas pose a major obstacle to the GOP’s hopes of defying political gravity and hanging onto control of the House.
Further complicating their fate is the need to govern over the next several months with one of the thinnest-ever House majorities. That’ll include contentious votes on government funding and whether to restore the lapsed Obamacare subsidies – all while Johnson faces a discontent within his ranks that’s led to a historic number of discharge petitions intended to bypass the speaker’s powers to control the floor.
In any floor vote, Johnson can only lose two of his own party’s votes after the sudden death of GOP Rep. Doug LaMalfa. That precarious position is likely to be more dire since Trump critic Rep. Thomas Massie – whom the president blasted in his Tuesday remarks – is considered an unreliable vote, meaning Johnson in many cases will only be able to afford one Republican defection.
And that’s only if there is perfect GOP attendance – a rarity in a chamber where dozens of members are running statewide races back home, in addition to the usual ebbs and flows of attendance due to sickness or injuries. (Hours after the news of LaMalfa’s death, GOP leaders confirmed that another GOP congressman, Rep. Jim Baird, had been hospitalized in a car accident. It’s not clear how soon he’ll be able to vote again, according to a leadership source.)
Trump acknowledged the slimming House margin on Tuesday, characterizing LaMalfa as a reliable vote and pressing Republicans to stick together in the coming months.
But he betrayed no willingness to drop his own feuds with a handful of Republicans in the name of party solidarity, repeatedly insulting those who have opposed Trump on some key votes.
“No matter how good, he won’t vote for us,” Trump said of Massie, without naming the Kentucky Republican. “There’s a sickness. There’s something wrong.”
He later complained that centrist Republican Sens. Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, as well as the late John McCain, had opposed his first-term effort to repeal the ACA, calling it a “nasty vote from a couple of people.”
“On health care, it’s never been our issue,” Trump said, arguing that they’d stood between him and a major legislative success. “It should be our issue.”
The lament was just one of several as Trump wound his way through the unlikely political career that had put him, some 10 years later, in front of House Republicans eager to hear what would come next.
“Nobody ever had to suffer like I did,” he said at one point, while recounting his first-term impeachment and suggesting he’d face a similar fate if Republicans lose the midterms.
Toward the end of his 80-minute speech, at the performing arts venue that now bears his name, Trump turned to the future, reassuring lawmakers that they have “so much ammunition. All you have to do is sell it.”
Yet as the GOP faces down sagging approval ratings and historical headwinds, even he couldn’t help but express some lingering doubts.
“Whether it’s a Republican or Democrat, whoever wins the presidency, the other party wins the midterm. And it doesn’t make sense,” he said. “We’ve had the most successful first year of any president in history. And it should be a positive.”
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