Official White House Photo by Molly Riley
Donald Trump speaking to press
President Donald Trump speaks to the press before boarding Air Force One at Palm Beach International (Nov. 16, 2025)
A foreign policy expert made a stunning prediction on Monday about what President Donald Trump's life will be like if Republicans can't retain their majorities in Congress following the 2026 midterm election.
David Rothkopf, a foreign policy expert and columnist for The Daily Beast, discussed how the upcoming midterm election could impact Trump's presidency on a new episode of "The Daily Beast Podcast" with the outlet's executive editor, Hugh Dougherty. He argued that there are several issues Americans are facing right now that will “add up” for Trump and the Republican Party as the midterm approaches.
“If you look outside your window and you're living in most American cities these days, you're going to see ICE rounding up your neighbor or somebody who works in your neighborhood, dragging them off, whether they're an American citizen or they're not, whether they did anything wrong or not, whether they're contributing to the community or not,” Rothkopf said. “And that's going to add up.”
Rothkopf previously authored a column where he predicted that Trump's next year is going to be “hell.” In the column, Rothkopf argued that Trump “saw his own mortality” in the November elections, where Democrats won a spate of key races nationwide. That caused the president to start considering how his administration will end, Rothkopf argued.
On Monday, Rothkopf took that argument a step further.
“Despite all his efforts to put his thumb on the scale of the elections, there will be an election next year, and all the signs say the Republicans are going to do terribly in the election next year,” he said. “And so the chickens are going to come home to roost at the worst possible time.
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“[Trump] can't give a speech to talk his way out of this one, because it's people's lives and and that's going to be bad news for him,” he continued. “And if the Democrats win control of the House or the Senate, the next year is going to be even worse for Donald Trump because he will be impeached. People in his cabinet will be impeached. His programs will be dead in the water, and the Donald Trump chapter of American history, it'll be over because he'll be 80 years old.”
