A veteran Fox News analyst went down Donald Trump’s list of midterm troubles on live television, and it was not a short one.
Fox News chief political analyst Brit Hume told viewers on Monday, Oct. 19, 2026, that he cannot tell whether President Donald Trump’s midterm campaign blitz is making any difference for Republicans.
“The president has been out campaigning vigorously, but I’m not sure it’s making any difference, and what difference it makes, I’m not sure is helping,” Hume said on “Special Report with Bret Baier,” two weeks out from the Nov. 3 election. The 83-year-old analyst then walked host Bret Baier, 56, through the problems stacking up on the 80-year-old president in the final stretch.
The polling gave him plenty to work with. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released Monday, Oct. 19, found Trump’s approval at 31 percent, the lowest of either of his terms, with Democrats leading the generic congressional ballot by 12 points, 47 percent to 35 percent. A Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll conducted Oct. 9-13 and published Sunday, Oct. 18, pegged his approval at 33 percent — part of a run of record-low ratings as early voting gets under way in several battleground states.
The Nickname Hume Wouldn’t Buy
Hume started in Texas, where Trump has taken to calling Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico “Tala-freak-o,” a coinage the president has explained by saying Talarico is “a little freaky.” Talarico, a former teacher and Austin-area state lawmaker, has built a following among Democrats as a progressive populist. He faces Ken Paxton, the Trump-endorsed Republican nominee who ousted Sen. John Cornyn in the May primary runoff for the seat Cornyn is vacating. A Fox News poll published Oct. 2 had Talarico narrowly ahead, 51 percent to 49 percent.
Hume allowed that Talarico has backed what he called exotic positions over his years in public life and is not, on paper, a good fit for the state. “However, what he does not seem to be is a freak,” he said. On camera, Hume added, the Democrat comes off as mild-mannered and pleasant, and not an unappealing candidate whatever voters make of his politics.
The Putin Problem Hume Couldn’t Ignore
Foreign policy came next, and Hume said he doubts the president is helped by his warm turn toward Russian President Vladimir Putin paired with what looks like another cold shoulder for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Late Friday, Oct. 16, Trump suspended a sweeping package of Russia sanctions that Congress had passed the month before, drawing fire from both parties. It followed an Oct. 9 deal to import Russian diesel, which Trump pitched as a way to ease fuel prices that have surged since the war with Iran began. Over the weekend of Oct. 17-18, the president questioned whether Zelensky wants the war to end at all, and on Monday, Oct. 19, he told reporters he would be open to a meeting with Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping on ending the war, even without Zelensky at the table.
Americans have never fully bought in on Zelensky, Hume said, but they favor him by some margin. Putin’s numbers, he added, are terrible.
The Press Secretary “Fiasco”
Then came the White House podium. Hume called the press secretary episode a “fiasco,” saying the administration sent someone out with only a day or two to prepare and that it went badly, which he described as a crazy thing to do.
He never used her name. Katie Zacharia left the job on Oct. 16 after less than a week, the shortest tenure of any U.S. press secretary on record, and she has pointed to how little time she had to prepare for her debut briefing, telling Fox News host Sean Hannity that her briefing materials arrived that morning. Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the episode was botched from the start and was not all Zacharia’s fault.
“So I don’t see this White House and this campaigning by the president as having made much headway so far,” Hume said. It echoed a warning he gave Baier on Oct. 14, when he said Republicans risked a “big washout” in which they lose races that were not even thought to be close.
Baier steered the segment to France, where protests that began as a student push for better school conditions have become some of the worst unrest the country has seen in years, damaging historic landmarks and businesses and drawing criticism of French President Emmanuel Macron’s response. Hume said that if the chaos reached American soil it might change the political atmosphere here. Short of that, he said, he was unsure how much it would matter to the election.
