Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters said Wednesday that President Donald Trump will be a dominant force on the campaign trail in 2026 and 2028 — even without his name on the ballot.
In an interview on Newsmax's "Wake Up America," Gruters said Trump plans to crisscross the country to boost GOP candidates because he understands "if we don't win the midterms, his presidency is basically over."
He stressed that Trump's decision to stay deeply involved is rooted in concerns about what would happen if Republicans become the minority party in Washington.
"President Trump is going to be on the campaign trail," Gruters said. "He's going to barnstorm the country to help these Republican candidates because he knows what's at stake if we don't win the midterms."
He warned that Democrats have already previewed how they would govern if they retake the majority in Congress, pointing to the 43-day government shutdown and what he described as a strategy of obstruction on Capitol Hill.
"They're going to investigate everybody in the Trump administration, and then they're going to impeach the president," Gruters said. "We can't let that happen."
The key to the coming election cycles, Gruters said, is communication, and "there's nobody that can deliver that message better than President Trump."
He emphasized that Trump is hitting the road not only to energize voters but also to explain the state of the economy and what his administration has done to ease Americans' financial burdens.
"There's nobody that does rallies better than President Trump," he said. "That's what we need, and that's what President Trump is going to do a lot more of as we move forward."
The RNC chair pointed to Trump's initiatives – "no tax on tips, overtime, Social Security, the Trump accounts" – describing them as part of a "laser focus" on reducing costs and boosting real wages.
"But it takes time," Gruters said, adding that Trump's efforts come with "empathy" for the plight of working families.
He argued that voters need to hear directly from Trump about economic progress and the contrast with former President Joe Biden's Democrat administration.
"People need to be told exactly what's happening," Gruters said. "And that's what the president's doing."
Despite chants of "Trump 2028" at the president's Tuesday night rally in Mount Pocono, Pennsylvania, Gruters acknowledged the challenge of sustaining GOP momentum once Trump is no longer on the ballot.
"It's not going to be easy," he said. "Obviously, we know that almost every party in power over the last 150 years have gotten crushed in these midterms, but we are doing everything humanly possible, working with the president every single day, to make sure that we have everything ready to go so we can win these midterms."
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