President Donald Trump urged House Republicans to focus on healthcare reform as a winning issue heading into the 2026 midterm elections, noting the party will likely need to be “flexible” in its staunch anti-abortion stance.
Speaking at the newly named Trump-Kennedy Center on Tuesday, Trump opened by claiming that, in 2025, Republicans were the “most successful House Republican majority in decades,” despite their slim majority in the chamber, before questioning why the parties in power typically lose in midterm elections.
“It’s an amazing phenomena. You know, you win the presidency, and we sure as hell are having a successful presidency. I will say that,” he said. “But even if it’s successful, they don’t win. I don’t know what it is. There’s something psychological.”
During the roughly 85-minute speech, he urged Republicans to “just stay together.”
“What we’re doing is the right thing for the country,” he said. “If you look at what we’re trying to solve, the healthcare problem, we’re trying to get better healthcare at a lower price. I mean, that’s a good thing, right?”
“You want to turn this thing? You work on Favored Nations, you work on borders, you work on all of the things that we talked about, but now you take the healthcare issue away from them,” Trump said. “But you’ve got to be flexible on Hyde,” referring to the legislative provision barring federal funds from going to health organizations that provide abortion services.
His remarks on the Hyde Amendment are sure to raise criticism within the Republican ranks. Immediately after Trump’s comments, Sen. James Lankford (R-OK) said he’s “not flexible in the value of human life.”
“I don’t believe some children are disposable and some children are valuable.”
The president did address the tragic death of Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) earlier this week. He called a “champion” for children and water-use policies, noting that “he voted with [him] 100% of the time.”
“He wasn’t a three o’clock in the morning person, do you know what I mean by that?,” Trump continued, referencing his efforts to earn Republican yays in the 11th hour before votes. “And with Doug, I never had to call. He was with us right from the beginning. I love those guys. I must say, I probably love them the best. You know the guys that I don’t have to call, they know we’re doing the right thing.”
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“They just want the call. They want love. They need love,” Trump said. “They’re more insecure than most of you. Most of you are secure people — don’t, you’re all laughing. No, most of you are secure people. I had a couple say, ‘Look, I could have Trump call me all the time. I just have to break his ass a little bit and he’ll be calling, calling, calling.’ But I appreciate those.”
The rest of Trump’s remarks more or less followed his typical campaign rally format, including comments on border security, trans-athletes competing in women’s sports, violent crime in U.S. cities, his tariff agenda, and Democrats’ marking of the five-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 Capitol riot Tuesday morning.
The president briefly discussed his recent capture of former Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, questioning why Democrats were criticizing his operation considering Maduro was a “bad guy.”
“They’ve been after this guy for years and years and years, and he’s a violent guy,” Trump said, claiming that protesters opposed to the action are “paid.” “He gets up there and he tries to imitate my dance a little bit, but he’s a violent guy, and he’s killed millions of people.”
“We should all have quality signage like that. The one thing I want, I want their sign making. The guy is great. He does beautiful signage,” the president said. “Now I want to find out who that is. I wanted to work for the Republican campaign. He’s much better than our guy, whoever the guy is.”
Trump did signal one relatively new messaging line ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, touting the success of his most favored nation’s drug-pricing policy and claiming that new deals in the coming year would drive down costs of prescription medications by “thousands of percent.”
“On that one item, you should win this election. The New York Times barely wrote about it. The other papers barely wrote about it. Nobody even knows about the drug prices,” he claimed. “These things are so important because you guys got to get elected. Because if you don’t get elected, we have a country that’s going to go to hell, so we can’t play games, ladies and gentlemen.”
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You can watch Trump’s remarks in full below.
