Republican tells Trump to 'go further' after midterms defeat

How should Donald Trump respond to all of this? And what can we glean from the appointment of his pretty pugnacious former deputy chief of staff, Stephen Miller, to the top, top job? Well, Errol Moore-coach is a Republican strategist, spokesperson for Republicans overseas UK, joining us live now from Miami. So we're grateful to you, Errol, because I know it's pretty early over there. So thanks so much for joining us on this Sunday morning to give your reflections. What lessons do you take from the Republicans' drubbing? Well, I think, well, first of all, thank you for having me. And I think it's a lesson in messaging, obviously. While the argument can be made for the Iran war in certain respects, there was no messaging. There was no... Continuity. There was no way to make that argument to anybody under the age of 45. It was just a top-down failure of leadership. Probably the entrenched rot in most of political parties in the state level can be exposed. So, I mean, obviously, what happened in Texas could happen in California one day. When you get complacent in your home world, let's say, things can come down around you. But ultimately, yeah, just a messaging issue with a cost of living issue that nobody could really get on point as far as getting the voters rallied around. And the Democrats turned out. They turned out they were passionate and they wanted to do what Republicans didn't, which was win this time. How much of that messaging problem, let's leave aside the policy, but how much of that messaging problem, therefore, can be laid at Donald Trump's door directly? I mean, he closed out the campaign instead of talking about prices or trying to give an explanation of the Iran war, as you know. Talking about the reflecting pool, he talks a lot about the ballroom. He said that the cost of the pump is a price worth paying for Iran. I mean, a lot of it is down to him, isn't it? Sure. And I would be the first to agree that the price of the pump is the cost worth paying considering that price of the pump had been there during the Ukraine war and all of that. Regardless, Donald Trump is sort of an interesting enigma. It's not as though he's working in tandem with people to get his message across. So when the message goes across, he gets all the credit. He's like a fully leveraged trader. He wins all the upside. He takes all the downside. So he has to own both sides of it. In this case, yeah, he misplayed his hand as the president. And I think he overplayed. The love that he might have had from his base that certainly didn't extend to the rest of the party. Now, one of the pillars or one of the planks, perhaps, of that defeat is what we saw with minority voters. Because, of course, Donald Trump did it really, really well with minority voters, particularly Hispanics, but not just Hispanics back in '24. And there was a lot of talk maybe about a Republican realignment. So much of that appears to have been thrown away, partly as a result. He's been successful at the border, no question. But his heavy-handed tactics, employing ICE in cities like Minneapolis, it seems there's no doubt that that has repulsed plenty of minority voters. That was the brainchild of that policy of Stephen Miller, his former deputy chief of staff, now his chief of staff. Why is promoting Stephen Miller, the architect of that policy, the right response to these midterms? Well, it's an interesting situation. On the one hand, the president was elected by a party that very much ran on the deportation platform. Stephen Miller obviously has been the biggest proponent of that that could have ever existed. The fact that they got drubbed so effortlessly in the midterms shows that whatever strategy they had, Susie Wiles, she was great for the transition. But probably Stephen Miller's approach could have been more successful in the first two two years, and it ended up being. They lost anyway, so I think the idea... So, you're saying that it would have been better if ICE had been even more heavy-handed? Yeah, they should have been more heavy-handed, and they should have been more transparent. The problem was the messaging was awful. They shot two American citizens. Certainly, yeah. Well, again, it's all about the messaging. You think there should have been more of that? There should have been much more enforcement. There should have been much more enforcement. What's more heavy-handed than shooting two Americans? Let's take Minneapolis, for example. I know you're very well aware of it. So in these sanctuary cities where the cities aren't helping the federal government, that's where the problems happened. You didn't have problems happen when states worked with the federal government. So ultimately, you had a failure of messaging and a top-down failure to communicate to the American people. What the value of what they do is. Less than 1% of the people who came in are working in agricultural jobs. Errol, may I put maybe an alternative suggestion? It isn't about messaging. It's that Americans, white, Hispanic, black, don't like to see American citizens being shot by a government agency which is acting like a paramilitary force for the president. Yeah, nobody likes to see anybody get shot. It's a travesty. But in all of these cases, there's two sides of the story. You're saying there should be more ICE? There should be absolutely more ICE, and that's what Stephen Miller is going to do. So you think that Stephen Miller, the right response to this, well, the worst election results for the Republicans since Richard Nixon's time, is to send more ICE officers onto the streets doing more of the things which has led to an absolute revulsion across American society? They need to do a better job, and they need to actually... Well, not shooting Americans could be a start, I suppose. Yeah, sure. We don't doubt that. Americans shouldn't be interfering with lawful investigations either. So there's two sides of it. Ultimately, the Republican Party needs to double down on what it believes in, and what it believes in is law and order. And so making sure that ICE is funded and doing what it does isn't why we lost the election. It's part of the reason. Part of the reason. But it isn't law and order, is it? But it's not law and order. I mean, I've reported... You're trading the... the value of the party for the safety of the nation. So the Republican Party loses, the country becomes safer. That's what an American president does. I've reported from the streets of Minneapolis during the height of the problems that we saw at the start of the year. It wasn't law and order. It was Americans being unlawfully killed. And it was sometimes American citizens or permanent green card holders or residents being arrested, being deported. I put it to you that the idea that what America needs and wants is more of that is fanciful. It's not more of that. The fact of the matter is Minneapolis is an incredibly special region where the resistance to the federal government is bizarre. You're supporting the criminals in your country. You're not supporting the law enforcement. So ultimately, yeah, you can't double down on the way it was done, but you have to double down on the message. The message is the American people want safe borders. They want more jobs. And why didn't they vote for it on Tuesday night if they'd done such a good job? Because they didn't do a good job with the cost of living, and Americans care far more in the end about that than anything else. Stephen Miller called the Democrats a domestic extremist organization. On that basis, do you accept that American citizens just voted for a domestic extremist organization in almost record numbers? In campaigning, people say a lot of things. People have said a lot of things about President Trump and the Republican Party. Certainly, we don't hold them all to task. Do you agree with that assessment from Stephen Miller? Fundamentally, in some respects, there's an argument for it, yeah. What's the argument? Well, I think the argument is just the fundamental difference in ideology. So both parties will see the other party as a fundamentally dangerous ideology, which is fundamentally dangerous. But that's different, isn't it? That's different, Errol. Of course, different parties will see the other's ideology as bad or damaging, even dangerous. But that's different from saying that they're a domestic political terrorist organization. No, that's what they, I mean, they've called the MAGA the American Taliban. So we're going back and forth on semantics. Nobody cares. Well, I think it's not semantics, is it? When the chief of staff of the president of the United States believes that the main opponent is a domestic extremist organization. Sir, the last president of the United States believes the current president of the United States is a literal fascist or something. So again, semantics. I hear your point, but semantics. But you do agree with your description that they are a domestic extremist organization. On some topics, yes. When you're breaking down civil organizations, when you're breaking down the border and facilitating an invasion, those types of things, yeah. Is it helpful or what does it say about an American administration that when asked whether the White House will do what the courts instruct them to do, he said it depends on whether the courts do the right thing? Do rights depend on judges giving the White House the answers it wants? Judges don't make the law. Judges just enforce the law. Stephen Miller is referring to the fact that when judges try to make the law or interpret the law, it's a problem. We all know that. Left-wing activist judges, right-wing activist judges, any activist judge. The judge is there just to give the verdict. So that's what Stephen Miller is referring to. And it's a perfectly legitimate discussion about judicial overreach on both sides, left or right. That's perfectly legitimate. But that's not quite what Miller has said. Miller has said that the White House will do what the courts tell them to do if they do the right thing. Now, you can talk about judicial overreach as much as you want, but it's pretty damaging, isn't it, to have a White House chief of staff who suggests that the White House might not obey the law. I mean, that's just not what he's saying at all, man. You understand for a fact that he's just talking about judicial overreach. The entire problem we have is federal judges putting injunctions on the president, telling him, oh, you can't put an aircraft carrier here. He said that the administration, to be specific, Errol, he said that the administration was considering suspending habeas corpus, the right to challenge your detention in court. And he added, when and if the challenge came, whether the White House would do as the courts told them he. He said it would depend on whether the courts do the right thing. Now, habeas corpus is in your constitution. I would have thought that a president and a chief of staff would be quite committed to it. I think he was specifically, again, we're just cherry picking random statements made by somebody's career. But you're referring to illegal immigrants. And that's where the application of different laws in the American Constitution are up for debate, I think, is the response there. But you're trying to cherry pick like random things that this person has said as though there's he's anti law and order. The one thing Stephen Miller is above all else. Is pro-law and order? I think anybody can go and look at it. Mr. Miller, Mr. Moore coach, Mr. Moore coach, Mr. Miller, Mr. Miller was responsible for an initiative which saw mass government operatives abducting and in some cases shooting Americans. That doesn't sound like law and order to me. For no reason? Just no reason? They were just going around picking up random people and executing them? Oh, I see. So it's okay for the federal government to send in mass operatives to shoot Americans, and that's just law and order? There's no situation where anybody getting shot is a positive situation, even when it's in the commission of a crime, even when it's in a negative situation, a life is lost. That's terrible. But you're cherry picking examples in extremely hyperinflated markets as far as the sentiment goes. Hyperinflated markets? What are you talking about? Oh, yeah. The sentiment of those interactions are crazy in places like Minneapolis, in places where you actually get the sentiment tracking. The national election doesn't happen in Minneapolis. The American people. No. No, they got battered everywhere. Yeah, listen, and nobody's disagreeing with that, but the idea that we're going to somehow change course on what we were elected on, which was the border, and deporting illegal immigrants is crazy. Now, the methods and the optics have been poorly managed. Would you agree with Stephen Miller's tweet last night when he said that President Trump is the most transformative political leader in American history, and he single-handedly saved America from those who would destroy it? Yes, I would agree. You think he's more transformative than Abraham Lincoln, the man who freed and emancipated the slaves and destroyed the Confederacy? Abraham Lincoln had no interest in freeing the slaves, if you look back on the history. And yet he did it anyway. Yeah, certainly he did it anyway. You think Trump's more impressive than him? I think Donald Trump is more impressive than Abraham Lincoln, yeah. I want that on the record. Trump might be an important political figure, but you're saying that he's more impressive than Abraham Lincoln, who emancipated the slaves, when you consider that Donald Trump's main achievement in his second term has been to throw away a golden opportunity for a Republican realignment and build a ballroom badly. If that's how you see it, we see it as he defeated a very, very, very... Entrenched Democrat-Republican oligarchy. And Abraham Lincoln defeated Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, who wanted to set up, who wanted to set up, who wanted to set up. Nobody cares about Abraham Lincoln. In the last 100 years, I would say Donald Trump is easily the most transformative president. Abraham Lincoln, in his century, the most important president. That's not what Miller said. He said he's the most transformative political leader in American history. And Abraham Lincoln... Literally defeated a white nationalist, a white supremacist, secessionist organization. He's not. That's ridiculous. Abraham Lincoln is an amazing president. It's a matter of history. What are you for? What did you just refer to? I said that Abraham Lincoln defeated a white supremacist secessionist organization. Abraham Lincoln was a white supremacist. Are you, did you have any concept of American history? Both sides were white supremacists. Yeah, except this compromise came from the north because they wanted to dehumanize the black people in the south. The entire concept here that is trying to make it as though Abraham Lincoln and Donald Trump are in the same argument because Stephen Miller made a tweet. And now we're sitting here for five minutes arguing if we in this century agree that Donald Trump is more impressive. Yeah, we think he's more impressive in this century. I would disagree with Stephen Miller in the sense that in all of American history, Donald Trump is not the most transformative. That would be, of course, Washington. Errol Moore, coach, I'm grateful for your time.