John,
To be an effective leader sometimes means that you end up walking a lonely road. There are times when you need to put the politics aside and advocate for things that may be tough for some people to hear.
When I look around and see the Republicans who are running for president, I remain baffled why, for the most part, they refuse to offer a hopeful vision for America. They need to be talking about their ideas and why they are running for President.
It's almost as if they're all competing to be selected as Trump's running-mate rather than beating him to save the Republican Party and bring America together to make us stronger.
How much more evidence do they need that fueling anger and grievances is a losing formula? Just look the results:
• 2018: Republicans lost 41 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and Democrat Nancy Pelosi became Speaker again.
• 2020: Trump lost the White House, Democrats secured the majority in the U.S. Senate and held their majority in the U.S. House.
• 2021: In two very winnable special elections, and largely because of Trump's false election claims, Republicans lost two U.S. Senate runoff elections and the Democrats maintained control of the U.S. Senate.
• 2022: Democrats expanded their U.S. Senate majority, and while Republicans barely gained control of the U.S. House by five seats, they've largely been ineffective leading with such a narrow majority.
I recently discussed this with NBC's Chuck Todd:
