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The Briefing with Jen Psaki

Trump Cabinet's tone deafness makes election outreach plan ridiculous

The Briefing with Jen Psaki

MS NOW, Jen Psaki

Politics, News, Ms Now, Versant Media, Versant

4.4975 Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2026

⏱️ 40 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The Trump administration is rolling out a strategy to send Cabinet members to electorally competitive districts ahead of next year's midterms. Jen Psaki considers the political damage this strategy will cause for Republicans as everyone in Trump's Cabinet is somewhere on the scale from weird and tone deaf to personally repellant.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

The Trump administration's plan to screw around with the next election is as clear as it has ever been.

0:06.7

And right now, Governor Moore is fighting back in a really important way.

0:10.7

And today, the Republican-led state election board of Georgia also met for the first time since the FBI and Tulsi Gabbard raided the Fulton County election offices.

0:19.8

That's also something to watch the reconvening tomorrow. The former mayor of Atlanta and current Democratic candidate for Governor of Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms, is going to join me. I just mentioned that to Jacob, too, to talk about that tonight. And like I said, we have a lot, a lot to get to tonight, a lot of good people to chew it all over with. But I just want to start with something that happened actually last night.

0:40.3

Because last night, Trump's top political advisors met for a private meeting.

0:45.3

This included his former campaign manager, his pollster, his chief of staff.

0:49.3

They all huddled together at the private members-only Capitol Hill Club in D.C. to discuss what they

0:55.7

think should be Trump's midterm strategy. And according to the Wall Street Journal's Josh

1:00.1

Dossi, a big part of that crack team's plan is to encourage Trump's cabinet secretaries

1:05.4

to visit competitive districts. I, for one, I think that's a freaking phenomenal idea. I fully endorse it,

1:13.9

given that these are the kind of people that they are talking about here. Surely as vice president,

1:22.0

you'd like to be president. What I, well, look, I think, again, I'm going to try to do as good of a job as I can right now. I mean, that laugh is so awkward. It's like the stuff of nightmares. But that was, of course, Trump's number one surrogate, his vice president. He may be some sort of Manchurian candidate. I don't know. But at a minimum, the guy is not exactly oozing charm, really ever. I mean, just a few

1:46.0

weeks ago, he was booed at the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Milan. And that is actually

1:51.7

part of a long history of fans getting booed by crowds really all over the place. Definitely

1:58.3

send that guy to competitive districts. That's a bang-up strategy you came up

2:02.6

there with there. But hey, listen, if Vance is too busy, he's too weird, who knows, Trump could

2:07.8

always call upon his incredibly relatable and not at all off-the-wall bizarre Secretary of Health

2:13.6

and Human Services, RFK Jr. Here he is, this is a real video, I kid you not.

2:19.0

In an official HHS video, he just put out with right-wing musician Kid Rock to, I guess,

2:25.1

and this is really a reach here, and I'm not here to get in the heads of their strategy.

2:29.2

I guess to encourage the country to work out and eat healthy, I guess.

2:34.3

And they thought, RFK Jr. specifically thought it would be a good idea to film himself and

...

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