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Thursday, October 15, 2026
“Panic, anger and resignation.” That’s Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman reporting from “inside the House Republican conference” just 19 days ahead of the midterm elections. He quotes Rep. David Joyce describing the current political environment as “certainly toxic for Republicans.” As if on cue, a new Fox News poll was released overnight and had Trump’s approval rating at 36%. The good news for the GOP? That’s much better than the 30% Pew released earlier (polling adults). The bad news is that it’s three points lower than its last poll and the lowest Fox News poll on record (of registered voters). Meanwhile, James Talarico got his close-up with a primetime CNN Town Hall, clips of which led every network’s morning show, though Fox & Friends did not buy his religious explanations. And who had Susie Wiles leaving the White House after she beat cancer on their bingo card? I certainly didn’t, but Donald Trump publicly floated her replacement, adding another turn to the political-narrative news spin cycle.
01. GOP Panic Mode Sets In as Trump’s Approval Hits a Record-Low 36%
[Going Mainstream]. The House blamed gas and diesel for the bad poll numbers on Tuesday. Today, House Republicans panicked on the record after a Fox News poll showed a record-low Trump approval rating.
Punchbowl spoke with dozens of House Republicans for Thursday’s edition and found “panic, anger and resignation.” Representative Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania said, “In order to buck history, there has to be a reason history is bucked. Those factors are not present.” By 7 a.m. CNN had Republicans “in a panic mode” on air and was reporting that Jim Jordan is quietly lining up to be minority leader, which Jordan denies. Speaker Mike Johnson still says it “feels like 2024.”
Fox News dropped a new poll that has Trump at 36 percent, the lowest approval it’s measured in either term. His 22 percent on inflation is lower than Biden’s 29 percent just before the 2022 midterms.
Trump has been falsely claiming at rallies that inflation was at 1.7 percent before the Iran war. Bret Baier corrected him on air, telling Fox News viewers it was closer to 2.4, and it’s 3.7 now. Brit Hume said Republicans could get “a big washout” and wondered whether a president at 36 “should be out there front and center the way he is.”
CNN This Morning opened on the poll and featured Trump in Arizona saying “we’re making a fortune” off high oil prices. Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee told Punchbowl Republicans will get blamed for high costs because “we don’t have the guts to take on Big Oil.” Fox & Friends ran the poll’s generic ballot and the 22 on inflation twice in two hours but never mentioned the 36 approval in its first two hours.
TAKEAWAY: Remember the “red wave” of 2022 that never materialized? The “GOP Panic” is now such a deeply accepted narrative (supported by a metric ton of data), that anything less than a complete “washout” will do serious damage to an already questionable polling industry.
02. Talarico Gets His Close-Up While Paxton Ducks the Questions
[Gaining Traction]. JD Vance was gay-baiting and guessing Talarico’s search history earlier this week. CNN gave Talarico ninety minutes of Wednesday primetime, and every morning show played it.
CNN gave James Talarico ninety minutes of primetime Wednesday night, a town hall in Fort Worth where voters took turns in the chair across from him. Erin Burnett told the room CNN had offered Ken Paxton the chance to appear and he “has yet to respond.” Paxton hasn’t agreed to debate him either. A Catholic one-issue voter got “the Bible is silent on the issue of abortion.” A Christian voter asked about his old line that God is non-binary and got “I was being provocative and I want to admit that and come clean about that.” On the flu that kept him off the trail for nine days, he said staying home “sent my opponent and his conspiracy theorists spiraling.” Thursday his campaign told Politico it raised $64 million last quarter, a third-quarter record for any Senate candidate.
Fox & Friends covered the town hall in its first minute, and Lawrence Jones heard a “but” after every answer: “very squishy on all of the issues,” then “He’s being so dishonest.” Kellyanne Conway called Talarico a “spooky scary guy.” On Morning Joe the first words after the clip were “the guy is so good.” CNN This Morning spent its block on whether a seminarian can win religious voters.
Two of CNN’s Republicans took shots at their own party. Scott Jennings said of Vance’s gay joke that it “makes you look a little small.” Shermichael Singleton said Paxton “is certainly not my kind of guy,” before wondering why Trump endorsed him over John Cornyn.
TAKEAWAY: He had the flu! He said his past comments were “annoying.” He defended his religious beliefs and said a lot of things designed to calm centrists. He earned praise from predictable precincts and got nattering nabobed from the shows you’d expect. But he was out there, and this brings a possible Talarico-Paxton debate in the spotlight. Will Paxton agree?
03. White House Dysfunction Climbs to the Chief of Staff as Trump Shops Wiles’s Job Around
[Gaining Traction]. Tuesday it was a press secretary who couldn’t say where she passed the bar. Thursday it’s Trump asking allies who should replace Susie Wiles.
Politico reported Thursday morning that Trump has been asking allies about Susie Wiles and musing about replacements, per four people with direct knowledge. One senior elected Republican who got a call said Trump raised “the first honest questions about Susie.”
The names in circulation run from Stephen Miller to Kevin McCarthy to Yankees president Randy Levine. Part of what set it off, per Politico, was the Financial Times reporting that Wiles’s daughter represented Republika Srpska, and rivals making sure the president saw it. Trump’s statement to Politico called the story “TOTAL FAKE NEWS,” said Wiles has his “COMPLETE confidence,” and said Politico’s reporting is “why I kicked them out of the White House,” a day after a federal judge kept that ban blocked.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Katie Zacharia failed the California bar in 2011 and never passed one in the US, and Drudge led with it Thursday. Joe Scarborough said that as soon as she was announced he started getting calls telling him to “check into what she and her husband did in China.” “I’m not getting this from The Nation,” he said. “I’m getting this from the Trump White House.”
In two hours of morning television nobody said a word about Trump shopping Wiles’s job, and after seven nobody said Zacharia’s name either.
TAKEAWAY: Political pundits beware. Floating a Chief of Staff replacement isn’t necessarily a sign of a sinking ship. Wiles has served two years in that role, following a remarkably capable job running his campaign. That’s a solid run for an exhausting job, made more challenging by her cancer scare.
“My thing has always been, just be truthful with folks. Don’t go out there and tell them that it’s rosier than what it is.”
That’s Rep. Dave Joyce, an Ohio Republican in his 13th year in Congress, telling Punchbowl News, which is reporting “panic, anger and resignation” inside the House Republican Conference 19 days out from the midterms. Joyce added that voters “were promised things in ‘24, and none of those things are really coming to fruition,” and called the political environment “certainly toxic for Republicans.” Speaker Mike Johnson said earlier in the week that “it feels like 2024 to me” and that the polling “is not reflecting” what’s happening. (Punchbowl News)
Where the prediction markets and the coverage disagree. Odds: Kalshi, as of 8:00 AM ET Thursday. Morning Frame does not offer betting advice.
This newsletter holds no position in any market listed. Not betting advice.
Ukraine Resumes Refinery Strikes Trump Told It to Stop: President Volydymyr Zelensky told the Financial Times that Ukraine will go back to hitting Russian oil refineries, the targets Trump said Saturday he’d told him to leave alone. This comes after Starlink disruptions hit Ukraine’s military this week and Elon Musk said limits on the military version are decided by the US military “and ultimately POTUS.” (New York Times)
Sometimes the raw data tells the better story…
Obama's Chief of Staff Walked a Month Before a Midterm Wipeout. On October 1, 2010, Obama called it "a bittersweet day here at the White House" as Rahm Emanuel left to run for mayor of Chicago, with Pete Rouse filling in. Thirty-two days later, Democrats lost 63 House seats. Cut to today, and the political media ecosystem will be talking about Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles’ potential departure from the White House, perhaps forgetting the similar split by a guy who sure is acting like he’s very interested in his own 2028 run for the White House.
Based on transcripts from the 6 and 7 a.m. hours of Fox & Friends, CNN This Morning, News Central, and Morning Joe.
When Bret Baier and Brit Hume are setting the stage for a midterm “washout,” you know things have crossed over to the mainstream. Yet the White House strategy is to send Trump on a national rally tour as his approval numbers go from bad to worse, with a message that seems to address the root problem beneath the symptom of terrible polls. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I’m not suggesting cognitive decline is at play here, but maybe Trump sees the numbers and understands that having a Democratic Congress that attacks him is better for the grievance business?
The Morning Frame tracks which political stories are spreading, which are stalling, and how you can tell the difference. Powered by Narrative Prism.