Poor Messaging and Extreme Rhetoric Hurt Republican Election Results

0:00 Speaker 2 Sunday morning.

0:01 Speaker 1 What the heck is going on in the country? Well, let’s go to Nicole Majotakis, one of the few Republicans that won on, I guess, Tuesday, which was a disaster.

0:13 Speaker 2 For the Republicans. Nicole. Well, it’s good to be with you, John. Thank you so much for having me again.

0:20 Speaker 1 Well, what went wrong? Give us your estimation. Give us the pulse of the situation. Did you win with less numbers than you expected to win by? You tell us.

0:31 Speaker 2 Well, John, I was very happy to get 56% of the vote in this district. You have to remember that this district has a double-digit advantage in registration for the Democrats. It is a district that we took from a Democrat six years ago. And when you look at the numbers from around the country and see how people performed, we

0:56 had one of the biggest victories in the country. But I think a lot of that has to do with the frustrations that people in my district have with our mayor and our governor, the push towards socialism. They’re not happy with the direction of this state. And I am the only Republican voice in Washington that’s pushing back against that.

1:14 With that said, I think that this is also a moment where Republicans across the country need to really be honest about what happened here and how we lost so many seats. And I think that we delivered some really good things with President Trump, but we had Our messaging was clearly not one that resonated with the people. People

1:34 are frustrated about many different things. And yes, we delivered largest tax cuts in middle-class history. Yes, we secured our border. Yes, we ridded our nation of many criminals. But with that said, I feel on some issues, we went too fast, too far.

1:48 You know, we saw this with some of the Doge cuts. We saw it with a broad brush approach to tariffs. We saw it with, you know, immigration issues. I think that we need to be somewhat centrist when it comes to some of these issues. People want public safety. They want common sense. They want a government that respects the taxpayers.

2:10 We’ve done that. But number one, it’s about messaging. And number two, messaging to explain to them what we’ve done. Because oftentimes, you know, some of the rhetoric at these rallies is, really did not do any service in terms of actually explaining to American people what we’ve done to make their lives better over the last two years with

2:30 cutting taxes and making our nation more secure.

2:33 Speaker 1 So you think it’s a communications.

2:40 Speaker 2 Gap? I think it’s two things, John. I think, one, it is the communications issue, but I think the other thing is what are the American people telling us? Two years ago, They voted overwhelmingly for Republicans rejecting Joe Biden and the Democrats because they went so far to the left.

2:56 I think in some cases people view that the Republicans may have gone too far the other way, particularly in issues like immigration, where now what they’re telling us is that they really want centrist governing. And I honestly think at the end of the day, it’s why I did so well in my election compared to other districts is

3:13 because I’ve been more of that centrist right person. elected official that has been, I think, very rational and reasonable when it comes to these issues. Look, John, you’re not going to find anyone who’s more tough on border security and deporting criminals than me. But at the same time, I recognize that immigration is so critical. And as the

3:33 daughter of immigrants, we know that we have economic needs, health care needs. We need to have pathways to citizenship for people to provide services and to achieve their own American dream. And when we don’t give people legal pathways, that’s how we end up with this illegal immigration chaos that we had. So I think we need to have

3:52 a balanced approach going forward, and we need to look at things like that and say, what could be a reasonable, balanced solution where we are having a zero tolerance when it but also give people proper pathways so they can come legally and contribute to our society, fulfill our economic needs.

4:15 And I think that that’s the I think honestly, I think that’s what the people are. That’s one of the messages that was being sent, particularly when you look at immigrant communities throughout the country.

4:25 Speaker 1 Now, in addition, do you think that there was some Republicans that were upset with the president and stayed home or whatever? Do you think the socialists were definitely against them? The Democrats, I guess, were against them. So is it a three-way item?

4:46 Speaker 2 I think this is the, you know, going back to the communication, right? You know, some of the rhetoric at the rallies were not helpful. They weren’t focused on the issues that people actually care about. You know, I don’t know that many people know that we took on the PBMs, the middlemen, pharmaceutical middlemen that were driving up prices of

5:05 prescription drugs. And we’re forcing them to pass rebates and savings on to the people. Trump Rx, you can get prescription drugs in some cases 80 to 90 percent off what their price was. You know, these are real savings for people that we’re not communicating. Trillions of dollars in private investment coming to the United States, expanding domestic manufacturing,

5:27 creating jobs, growing our GDP. I don’t know that people are aware of this. They may be more aware, at least in my district, of the tax cuts. I mean, I was talking about this to nauseam, that we quadrupled salt, that we gave seniors, 88% of them... The taxes they paid on Social Security refunded to them. The child tax credit.

5:47 These are issues I talked about constantly. I don’t know that other people were talking about as much in other districts. We saw firsthand what the lack of border security did to our city when we were having thousands of migrants living in these luxury hotels at taxpayer expense. You know, to me, we fixed that issue. We did stop putting

6:12 an end to that madness. And so maybe it was not as much of an issue in people’s front mind as it was other issues like high gas prices, high electric costs, which, by the way, those electricity costs, New York is paying 60 percent more than the rest of the country because of Kathy Hochul and Albany’s policies. But

6:30 maybe they took that out on the Republicans. You know, I just think that when we’re talking about the reflecting pool or the golf course or the ballroom or the Kennedy Center.

6:42 Speaker 1 I think generally American people didn’t want to hear about that.

6:46 Speaker 2 Exactly. Exactly. And I think that there was too much focus on some of those nonsensical topics.

6:52 Speaker 1 Yes. Yes. Well, thank you so much for coming on and we’ll talk again real soon.

6:58 Speaker 2 Thank you very much. Appreciate you.