Even Republicans are frantic for Trump to 'shut up' about his ballroom: ex-GOP strategist

President Donald Trump's "obsession" with putting a massive ballroom onto the White House has become such an optics problem that even Republicans want him to stop talking about it, former GOP strategist Rick Wilson told MS NOW on Wednesday.

This comes as a federal judge ordered construction on the ballroom, which has already demolished the East Wing, to stop for the time being.

"Rahm Emanuel made a really good point, I thought, in the Wall Street Journal yesterday about what Democrats need to prioritize, how they need to go after the Republicans and Trump if they do end up winning in the midterms," said anchor Katy Tur. "And he said, resist the urge to go after Donald Trump as much as you might want to because of his, you know, corruption and his desire to enrich himself, etc. The American public already knows that he's dishonest. They know this about him. They've accepted it. They voted for him twice. They put him in the White House twice. If you run on that alone, it's not enough to win. You've got to run on a positive agenda."

"So in light of that, Rick, is it a good idea to, you know, to hang on to this and say, Donald Trump doesn't care about you?" she asked.

"Look, I think ... this is a beautiful split-screen for Americans to watch," said Wilson. "They are paying much higher prices for gas, higher prices for groceries. Inflation is back in the 4 percent range, higher than it was when Biden left office. All of these things are happening while Donald Trump, if you give him 30 seconds to get off topic, he will go back to talking about the gold leaf and marble finishes and all the things with this ballroom. It's an obsession of his."

"Even Republicans would like Donald Trump to get off of that subject," Wilson continued. "They would like to get back to trying to have an economic argument that we're not paying more for gas and not paying more for groceries and not paying more for everything because of inflation and tariffs and war. But they're not going to get that. What they are going to get is Trump obsessing and fetishizing this ballroom in a way that — I've even talked to some Republicans recently who were like, if he would just shut up about it, it would be great. He could build it, just shut it up about it."

"But I think that the lack of action by Republicans on anything — look, they put it all on the table for the Big Bad Bill, they put it all on the table to block the Epstein files, and they put it all on the table for the SAVE Act. None of those make Americans' lives more affordable," Wilson added. "I think Trump's in some real trouble on this because ... it's a perfect split-screen of, of out of touch. It's not just the corruption. It's that he's out of touch. He doesn't get it. And part of his shtick was always, I'm the guy that gets the middle class, I'm the guy that gets the working class, I'm your billionaire advocate. And it's just not true."

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