Damian Paletta

He's not...

typically a great midterm election campaigner because he's not on the ballot.

It's harder for him to sell other people than it is for him to sell himself.

And so we're going to be watching really closely to see whether these kind of poor poll numbers that he has right now can improve in 2026 or whether the way he's been running his presidency turned enough voters off and enough independent voters off that Republicans really feel the brunt of it as we get later into 2026.

Well, he says his favorite word in English language is tariffs.

I don't expect that to change in 2026.

He might not have all the tools legally that he had in 2025, but he still will find ways to impose tariffs because it just gives him a tremendous amount of leverage over other countries.

The question is, if prices are going up for consumers in 2026, does he feel pressure on his own to kind of dial it back?

Otherwise, you know, Republicans could be really in for it in November.

Well, making prices lower can feel like putting the toothpaste back in the tube.

I mean, it's just really difficult to do.

He believes if there's lower rates at the Fed, then that'll bring down the price of homes and other stuff.

But I think he's really finding it difficult to get prices down everywhere.

And so affordability is going to be a key theme in 2026, and it's only going to get more intense as we get closer to November.

So my big question on this is how far does he push the envelope?

So far, the business community has gotten out of his way and they've felt like it's worth giving up some equity or a pound of flesh in order to get his blessing.

But the question is, is there a point when the White House goes too far, where it becomes actually problematic for the White House to be having this much of a grip over whether it's industrial policy or tech policy or just corporate America?

And we're clearly not there yet.

But

There's going to be a point when corporate America might push back and that's what we're going to be watching for really closely in 2026.