Matt Walsh Says GOP Has 'No Future' if Donald Trump Is Still Leader Into 2028

Conservative commentator Matt Walsh said on election night that the Republican Party "has no future" if Donald Trump is still its leader in 2028. He added that Trump remains the party's leader "by default" for now.

Walsh spoke Tuesday night on Friendly Fire, the Daily Wire's panel show, while results were still coming in. The co-hosts described the night as a Democratic wave. Michael Knowles read out network calls during the broadcast, including CNN's call of Maine's Senate race for Democrat Troy Jackson over Republican Senator Susan Collins.

Matt Walsh Breaks With Michael Knowles on Trump's Future

Knowles predicted that Trump would hold onto the party. "I don't think that Trump is done as the leader of the GOP, I think he remains the leader, I think he'll remain the leader through 2028 and even after," he said, arguing that Trump could credibly tell voters he "wasn't on the ballot."

Walsh agreed with the first part of that prediction but not the rest.

"I think, first of all, Trump by default will remain the leader of the Republican Party for now, but if that remains the case into 2028 and beyond, as you said, then the Republican Party has no future," Walsh said.

"The leader of the Republican Party cannot be in the future an 80-year-old, lame duck, unpopular president. So the process now has to be finding who the new leader is going to be." — Matt Walsh

Walsh did not call on Trump to step aside. He said he had made the same point on another show and that it would hold "even if we had performed well during the midterms." Trump turned 80 in June, and the 22nd Amendment bars him from running for a third term.

Later in the show, Walsh offered a harsher assessment. He identified the Jeffrey Epstein files as the turning point, calling it "the first time when Trump seemed to be totally wildly in a baffling way out of step with his own base."

Trump's Approval Rating Heading Into the Midterms

PolitiKool's polling average puts Trump at 38.3 percent approval and 58.6 percent disapproval as of Tuesday. His standing on the economy is weaker still: 29.6 percent approve, according to PolitiKool's polling average.

What Midterm History Says

Gallup found that when presidents had approval ratings below 50 percent, their parties lost an average of 37 House seats in midterms. When approval was above 50 percent, the average loss was 14 seats.

Since the 22nd Amendment took effect, six midterms have fallen in a president's second term. The president's party lost House seats in five of them, and in five it lost the White House two years later:

• 1958: Dwight Eisenhower's Republicans lost 48 House seats, even though his approval rating was 57 percent. Democrat John F. Kennedy won in 1960.
• 1974: Republicans lost 48 House seats months after Richard Nixon resigned during his second term, leaving Gerald Ford in office. Democrat Jimmy Carter won in 1976.
• 1986: Ronald Reagan's Republicans lost five House seats and eight Senate seats, with his approval rating at 63 percent. Vice President George H.W. Bush won in 1988.
• 1998: Bill Clinton's Democrats gained four House seats, the one exception to the pattern. Republican George W. Bush won in 2000.
• 2006: George W. Bush's Republicans lost 30 House seats, with his approval at 37 percent. Democrat Barack Obama won in 2008.
• 2014: Obama's Democrats lost 13 House seats. Republican Donald Trump won in 2016.

The seat figures come from the American Presidency Project at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

Who Could Lead the GOP After Trump

Shapiro cited betting-market odds that make Vice President JD Vance the favorite, and he predicted that Secretary of State Marco Rubio would not run. Vance leads the field at 38.9 percent in PolitiKool's 2028 Republican primary average, ahead of Rubio at 16.3 percent.

Shapiro said Vance faces a hard call. Putting himself in Vance's place, he said the only way Vance becomes the nominee is with Trump's endorsement, yet Trump has "a bunch of policies I don't necessarily agree with that I'm gonna have to quasi own but also quasi separate from."

He gave no names for who should replace Trump as party leader, or for how the GOP should choose.