James Blair: GOP 'Can Defy History,' Hold Majorities in Midterms

White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Legislative, Political, and Public Affairs James Blair told Sirius XM’s Breitbart News Saturday that he believes “Republicans can defy history” in the upcoming midterm elections and hold their majorities in Congress.

Blair joined Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matt Boyle on the program Saturday. Boyle emphasized that only twice has a party retained both chambers of Congress, with a president of the same party, in a midterm election. The first occurred in 1934, when Democrats expanded their majorities in the House and Senate under late President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the second occurred in 2002, when Republicans, with former President George W. Bush as commander-in-chief, also expanded their majorities.

When Boyle asked Blair if he believes Republicans can defy history, Blair said he thinks they can, pointing to the track record of Republicans since the last Trump inauguration versus the results of Democrat policies under the Biden administration.

Blair replied, “I do believe the Republicans can defy history, and we have a couple important elements to that. First and foremost, we have a record and a clear contrast. We can point very clearly to what things were like two years ago, and the American people remember that: eight percent interest rates for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage; now they’re under six percent. Five dollar an average gallon of gas. Now it’s under $2.50. We have real wages increasing, outpacing inflation. Joe Biden had real wages decreasing $3,000 a year, you know, with inflation far outstripping wage growth and price hikes and all of that. The Democrats gave us this economic nightmare that we inherited, and we are now turning around.”

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Blair emphasized that Trump is putting forth a broader vision, which he laid out in his State of the Union address, on what he plans to do next on the policy front.

“It’s not just promises made, promises kept, but it’s ‘Here’s what we want to do next,’ and the President made that clear in the State of the Union,” Blair told Boyle. “He laid out banning big private equity funds and hedge funds from buying up more houses in this country and competing with average American home buyers. He laid out a new savings plan, a retirement plan for people that don’t have one that… the federal government will be able to match up to $1,000 a year if people invest. And you know, I could go on, obviously, you heard other things he committed there. He laid out very important, Matt, the new ratepayer protection pledge, which ensures that the big tech companies are going to pay their own way for their electricity usage. That’s an agreement he secured with all the big players in the industry to say, you cannot raise electricity rates, you know, in your area on people just because you’re building. We want you to build. That’s great, but you have to pay your own way. So it’s not only about a contrast in what we’ve done, but going forward.”

Blair stressed, as Roosevelt told Americans ahead of the 1934 midterms, that the Trump administration’s message to Americans is that the job is not finished, though substantial progress is being made on the problems inherited from the Biden administration. He zoned in on real wages, as the typical private-sector worker under Trump has recouped, in one year, essentially half of the buying power he or she lost under Biden.

“FDR, he made it very clear in the midterms that they didn’t think the job was finished. He laid out to the American people that they were making progress, obviously, after the New Deal passed, and coming back out of the depression, but that they still had to finish the job, and he wanted to finish the job, and they were aware that there was still work that needs to be done and really, I think that’s the Republican strategy,” he said.

“We know that everything is not better completely, but we’ve made a ton of progress. Back to the real wages, Matt, $3,000 a year lost under Joe Biden and the Democrats. In just one year, we’ve put $1,500 of that back.  Now, we want to finish the next $1,500 and $1,500 more after that, and $1,500… after that, we want to get people ahead of, not just where they were under Biden, but ahead of where they have ever been before, and that requires being able to serve out the four terms,” he added. “So it’s very simple: ‘Promises made, promises kept. Here’s the agenda; the reason to come back out and vote for Republicans. We know the job is not finished, but we have a plan to finish the job. Please give us the time to do it.'”

Blair noted earlier in the conversation that the contrast between what Democrats advocate for and what Republicans advocate for was illustrated clearly during the president’s State of the Union address on Tuesday, particularly when Democrats remained seated when Trump asked legislators to stand if they agreed the government’s job is to put Americans before illegal aliens.

“Look what you saw at the State of the Union was a clear split screen. It was a clear contrast for the American people to see who stands for what, or sits, in that case, and what that means for who they want to vote for and put, you know, in power after the midterms,” Blair said. “The Democrats made very clear, the entire Democrat Party, think of it, Matt…they would not signal their agreement with the statement that the first role of the United States government is to protect the American people and not illegal immigrants. They wouldn’t agree with that.”

“You know what they did stand and clap for? When the President called them out for trying to raise taxes by $4 trillion last summer, which would have hit 90 percent of American taxpayers, and raise their taxes by thousands of dollars,” Blair continued. “They’re willing to own that position, and they’re willing to own the position that they are for illegal immigrants over American citizens. And I think that lays bare what the midterms are all about. I think that lays bare the differences between the parties, and really, it was a mask-off moment to just show that these are radical, reckless, far-left Democrats. They’re not moderate, they’re not down the middle, they’re not mainstream, and really, they’re a danger to our country.”

Blair added that the midterms in November offer two paths: regression with a Democrat majority or progression with a continued Republican mandate.

“So the midterms are about whether or not we want to go backwards when things were terrible under Biden and the Democrats, or go forwards and continue with the progress we’ve made on rebuilding the economy, securing the border, and making our cities more safe,” he said.

He also emphasized that Democrats refused to stand and clap for the mother of Iryna Zarutska, who was brutally and fatally stabbed in the neck, allegedly at the hands of career criminal DeCarlos Brown Jr.

“I mean, one of the highlights in our case, and low lights for the Democrats of the night was when the president introduced the mother of the young Ukrainian woman who was famously murdered on camera on the train in North Carolina,” Blair told Boyle. “And think about this. This young lady came from Ukraine, a war-torn country. She literally fled war to the United States of America, only to be killed here by a… repeat violent offender who had been arrested 14 times and let out of prison, Matt, by none other than Governor Roy Cooper, who is now the Democrats’ Senate candidate in North Carolina.”

“He is what the Democrats believe is a top recruit, a man who let out at least 3,500 criminals in a sweetheart deal,” Blair added. “This is just like Willie Horton, very famous situation. He goes out, he murders a young lady, and the president says, ‘Will you even stand to honor this young woman’s memory?’ Not a single Democrat took him up on that. Only the Republicans stand on the side of the innocent. The Democrats stand on the side of the violent repeat offenders that they and their liberal donors want to let back out on the streets.”

Blair noted that heading into midterms, the Republican party is, for the most part, unified, unlike Democrats, who are undergoing contentious primaries with far-left candidates.

“First and foremost, our party, electorally, is unified. We don’t have many big, bloody primaries playing out. The president has endorsed a wide range of candidates across the country, both incumbents and challengers,” he said. “The organizations are working very, very well together. The Democrats are facing a lot of left-wing primaries, and the faces of their party are increasingly radical… people. I mean, look at Graham Platner in Maine, a literal neo Nazi, is surging in the primary.”

He mocked Rep. Jasmin Crockett’s (D-TX) prospects in the Texas Senate race, joking that she is “very, very dangerous for us.”

“This is who they’re putting up. For us, Matt, we are a unified party. We’re all rowing in the same direction. The numbers look better than they did this time in 2018 for Republicans,” Blair added. “We are ahead of schedule. We’re outpacing the Democrats in voter registration in every state in the country. North Carolina, we mentioned, there’s more registered Republicans in North Carolina as of January 3rd of this year than Democrats for the first time since Reconstruction. That’s never happened before, Matt, and we’ve won that the last three presidential cycles in a row. So we’ve got a ton of opportunity, we’ve got a ton of momentum, we’ve got a ton of reasons to feel good, and really, we’ve just got to go out there and run through the tape, tell the American people our message, be honest with them, and ask for their support.”