Republican Strategist Joseph Pinion Says GOP Leadership ‘Wasted’ A ‘Lot Of Dough’

Republican strategist Joseph Pinion said Tuesday on CNN that GOP leadership wasted a lot of money during the midterm season, and added Republicans can’t lay all their blame at former President Donald Trump’s feet.

“CNN This Morning” played a clip from Republican Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley, in which Hawley said the midterm elections were a funeral for the Republican Party.

Pinion said he did not believe Hawley was referring to former President Donald Trump, and that he actually agrees with Hawley.

“It is Senate leadership that has turned the Republican Party into a gangrene caucus. I think that the reality is that when you look at what happens down in D.C., it seems to appear that winning was not the priority, that there were other priorities separate from making sure that we were taking back the Senate,” Pinion said. “I think the reality, if you look at where the money went, I think for better and for worse, whether you’re talking about Nancy Pelosi, whether you’re talking about Mitch McConnell, the argument for keeping them around has always been, they bring in the dough,” Pinion said.

“It appears that the Republican Party wasted a lot of that dough. I think that there is an inclination to believe that we can lay all the burdens at the feet of President Trump, and that’s a separate conversation certainly, they’re going to be gathered in Mar-a-Lago having a conversation about him moving forward,” he continued.

“Look, I think — there’s what voters believe, and then there’s the actual business of winning elections. I think that there is an argument to be made that there are voters who have grown tired of the Trump brand, that brand of politics. But I think if you’re talking about an election where we had a 41-year high for inflation, if you’re talking about an election where we had crime in many places in many cities that was going rampant, I think there was an opportunity to be more successful than we were,” Pinion said. (RELATED: ‘Fertile Grounds Politically’: Scarborough Said Republicans Had A Ton Of Winning Issues On Their Side)

Pinion went on to give the example that the RNC did not push money into New York, despite the Republican Party flipping four seats in the Empire State.

Trump endorsed more than 400 candidates throughout the midterm cycle, with a heavy emphasis on races in Arizona, Georgia and Pennsylvania. Despite the endorsements, Pennsylvania went blue, Georgia’s senate race is headed to a run-off, and Blake Masters and Kari Lake both lost their Arizona races.