Trump’s MAGA Machine Is Struggling to Keep Its Swagger: Author

The energy in Washington, D.C. has shifted as the midterms approach, with the swagger Republicans brought to Donald Trump’s White House in 2025 nowhere to be found.

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On The Daily Beast Podcast, political reporter Sarah Ewall-Wice explained why there is “a growing sense of desperation… coming out of this White House.” That trait is reflected in Trump’s executive order this week changing the name of Lake Ontario to “Lake America,” she said.

“Making over Washington, D.C,, renaming lakes, and just a plethora of other things that smell of desperation [are] coming out of this White House as a distraction,” she continued.

Trump, 80, “is focusing on something like this when everyone’s like, well, there are so many issues that actually impact us and are making our lives harder that he’s also doing,” Ewall-Wice said, as Coles mentioned one estimate that 77 farmers were going out of business in the U.S. every day.

“The president puts the focus on these useless things that he’s focused on and promoting, and the White House pushes out this kind of bizarre social media campaign to tout him renaming the lake,” Ewall-Wice continued.

One such attempt, it turned out, didn’t send the message the White House intended when the context became known.

“So he’s been using a lot of these distractions that are completely pointless, useless, and a complete waste of the office of the president of the United States. And that’s what I hear from people out across the country who are just trying to get by, where they hear so much about some of the nonsense that’s coming from Donald Trump,” she continued.

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“And they’re like, well, that’s not helping me, and that’s frustrating. And it just goes to show that the president is focused on how he appears and what he’s looking at. It’s not about making things better for us. And I get that sense from Democrats… but independents, who are not really aligned with Republicans or Democrats, have been making the same case. And some Republicans also are like, ‘We are frustrated by this. This is not working for us.’”

Ewall-Wice then alluded to polls showing Trump losing support among some of his most fervent supporters.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.

“So it’s a combination of everything,” she said. “But when he goes on these random spiels about changing names of lakes or redecorating the White House or building a ballroom, Republicans on the ground are not campaigning on any of that. They are not trying to focus on any of that. They are trying to focus on how they’ve helped or how they can help the voters who need to go to the ballot box to vote for them. And the president is not focused on that in the same way whatsoever.”

Ewall-Wice contrasted the reception Trump’s renaming of Lake Ontario has received with a similar move he made last year with the Gulf of Mexico.

“You saw a lot of MAGA-aligned lawmakers really touting the fact that he had changed the name of the Gulf of Mexico… and so they really went all in on this,” she said. “In some cases, we don’t see the same hype coming from lawmakers like, ‘Oh, look at this. The president did this great thing changing the name to Lake America,’ the way we saw with some of his past actions that still had no impact on voters.”