'Republicans grappling with reality' after Trump pep talk gives them little direction

House Republicans huddled at the Kennedy Center – to which President Donald Trump's name has been affixed – to map out their legislative agenda for the coming year with a perilously thin majority.

The president delivered a start-of-year pep talk Tuesday that offered few specifics or focused priorities in his rambling, off-script hour-and-a-half speech, but he made clear that winning November's midterm elections was crucially important to him personally, reported The Hill.

“You got to win the midterms," Trump told lawmakers. "Because if we don’t win the midterms … they’ll find a reason to impeach me."

House GOP leadership wants lawmakers to focus on affordability concerns among voters, which have been a source of frustration to the president – who vented about the topic during his meandering address.

“I wish that you could explain to me what the hell’s going on with the mind of the public — because we have the right policy,” Trump said.

Committee chairs mapped out a strategy for building on Trump’s tax cut and spending priorities passed into law in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which they've rebranded as the “Working Families Tax Cut," but they also realize how difficult it could be to pass anything in the House as currently constituted.

"Republicans are also grappling with the reality that in their historically slim majority, they have essentially no flexibility for GOP defections on bills they craft to address prices or income — a fact punctuated by the sudden death of Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-CA) on Tuesday," reported The Hill.

When a Texas Democrat takes office at the end of the month, Republicans will hold a slim 218-214 majority until March, when Georgia holds a special election to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and they'll only be able to afford a single GOP defection on party-line votes until then.

"The majority, you know, obviously, is thin, but it hasn’t stopped us before,” said House Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain (R-MI).