Fox News co-host Kayleigh McEnany argued this week that Democrats shifting further to the Left politically is a “gift” to President Donald Trump and Republicans going into the 2026 midterms.
“You have these voices in the Republican Party that are constructive. But the problem is they’re rubbing up against the Democrat voices, many of which you just read. I mean, that quote, if they go low, I’m going to the gutter, I guess gone are the days of Michelle Obama where they go high,” McEnany said.
“I’m not sure if those days were ever truly here, but at least they were in word rather than action. But I’m struck by what some of these Democrats have told The Hill. There is a Democratic senator. People are going to get hammered if we make a deal with Republicans,” McEnany said, referring to Democrats keeping the federal government shutdown for over a month to appease the far-left wing of their party.
“So they were afraid of getting hammered by their base. They’re admitting that. Another person familiar with Democrat in the Senate, their caucus thinking said we would have enough votes if people were not terrified of being sent to the guillotine,” McEnany said.
These people are so petrified of the same progressive left-wing flank that is animating the candidacy of Zohran Mamdani that they have to shut down the government and can’t even get military families paid. It is a really striking place for the party. This is something to watch because it could come back and bite Democrats big time going into next year’s midterm elections,” McEnany said.
Trump picked up a big win earlier this week from the U.S. Senate.
Senate Republicans have confirmed over 100 of President Donald Trump’s nominees, clearing the backlog of pending appointments in a single move. The confirmations came after the Senate GOP changed its rules last month to allow most executive branch nominees to be approved en masse rather than individually.
The change does not apply to Cabinet secretaries or judicial nominees.
The move represents the largest block of confirmations since the rule change took effect. Among those approved were former Republican Senate candidate Herschel Walker, who will serve as ambassador to the Bahamas, and Sergio Gor, former director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office, who will serve as ambassador to India.
Republicans invoked the so-called “nuclear option” — a party-line rules change — to speed up the confirmation process after months of Democratic opposition had slowed it to a crawl.
Some Republicans briefly considered allowing President Trump to make recess appointments, which would enable him to fill positions while the Senate was not in session. However, GOP leaders ultimately rejected that idea, citing concerns that it could backfire when their party is next in the minority.
The mass confirmation marks a major victory for Trump as his administration continues to fill key posts across the federal government amid ongoing partisan gridlock.
In September, Senate Republicans weighed changes to the chamber’s confirmation process as they faced a backlog of judicial nominations due to stall tactics by minority Democrats.
President Donald Trump had criticized Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) for preserving the Senate’s “blue slip” tradition, which allowed home-state senators to weigh in on nominees and could effectively block their confirmation if the slips were withheld.
GOP lawmakers considered several proposals before a meeting to speed up confirmations. According to The Hill, the leading option mirrored a Democratic plan floated two years earlier that would have permitted a single vote on as many as 10 nominees.
Other ideas included sharply reducing debate time, making some nominations nondebatable, and cutting the required procedural votes.
