Larry Kudlow: Republican losses in midterm elections are not Trump’s fault

So Donald Trump is scheduled to speak tonight at 9pm Eastern. His team calls it a campaign event, with an announcement. Most people think he will announce his 2024 presidential run.

I have no idea what kind of message it could be. It could be a commission of inquiry. I do not know. But here’s something I do know: the wave of blaming the former president for the disappointing election results is way, way overstated and oversimplified by a lot of people who really never liked him in the first place. This includes, disappointingly, many conservative editors. I’m laying my cards on the table now. As I have said before, I would prefer that any presidential pronouncements from Mr. Trump wait until after the Georgia runoff. From a power-sharing perspective, Herschel Walker’s race is very important, and I fear that Mr. Trump may be a distraction.

But I don’t know that, and neither does anyone else. Herschel Walker himself invited Trump to come and campaign for him, and this is Herschel’s campaign. So the mantra “Trump should stay out” may not hold at all, it may be completely wrong. Who knows? Indeed, perhaps Mr. Trump would rally the people to vote strongly. In fact, I think he should tell people to start voting by mail immediately. Do not stop! Republicans also need to learn how to play this game.

An interesting defense of Trump, by the way, on this issue and others in The American Conservative magazine by Senator-elect JD Vance, JD argues that the GOP has underperformed for two reasons: not enough money, especially at the grassroots level, and the party has been overtaken by the Democrats in terms of mail-in ballots and harvest. Republicans desperately need their own mail-in ballot and get-out-the-vote operation. But that has very little to do with Mr. Trump, it’s a matter of the party machine, state by state, and Vance says it’s not Trump’s fault.

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I happen to disagree with my former boss’s claim that the actual vote count in the 2020 election was massively fraudulent. disagree I truly believe, as I have said before, that the 2020 election was heavily influenced by the $450 million Zuckerbucks operation, putting Democratic operatives in key polling stations in key states and districts with little to no watch. That’s where the mischief was, and that’s the argument Mr. Trump needs to make.

Now, quickly getting back to Herschel Walker, I think it would be great if Mr. Trump donated at least $20 million from his own PAC to help Herschel. I think it would be great if he announced this tonight, regardless of the campaign event that it’s going to be, but the idea that the Trump-backed candidates, especially the Senate candidates who lost — they all lost — because they were in denial about the election in 2020 just doesn’t make sense to me.

We’ve interviewed all these candidates two or three times on this show: Vance, Oz, Masters, Walker, Bolduc, Smiley, O’Dea, Levy, Johnson, Grassley. At no point did either of them mention opting out of the 2020 election – it never came up. Inflation, crime, border, parents, these are the big problems. I never once heard anything about denying an election in 2020. So Trump’s critics who continue to use this argument of denying the election to blame him for a whole bunch of very close GOP losses – it just doesn’t make sense to me. This thread never came up.

Now, however, Mr. Trump has occasionally invoked denial of an election, that’s one thing, but he wasn’t on the ballot. The candidates themselves never mentioned it. So I still don’t see Trump being blamed in that regard. There’s a disconnect there. But what I mean is, whether he runs or not, he has a very impressive list of accomplishments, doesn’t he? Tax cuts, deregulation, a great economy, energy security and dominance, the Abraham Accords, toll China’s bell. That’s a very impressive list, and my big hope is that he’s talking about those policies that Joe Biden basically reversed — not the 2020 election.

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When Mr. Trump includes political content, people like it. They know that the country is not in good shape right now, nor is the economy, and they believe that Trump’s funds would be a very good approach. Look, like everyone else, I don’t like personal insults. I have never. Some of the tweets etc. It’s not my cup of tea, but in terms of policy content there is no better. Yes, I worked for him for three years, so I have a certain amount of bias. To understand!

We’ll see tonight which Trump comes out and what his message will actually be. I hope the content of the rules is severe, and I hope he helps Herschel Walker with a lot of the money, but I will say this: whatever Mr. Trump decides, I wish him luck. OK? I wish him luck and goodwill. Okay. That’s my riff right there, said it. Get it off my chest.

This article was adapted from Larry Kudlow’s introductory commentary for the November 15, 2022, issue of Kudlow.