During a meeting with GOP lawmakers at the White House over the summer, Trump berated House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris for raising concerns about the president’s signature tax-and-spending legislation. Trump demanded that Harris fall in line—then the president abruptly left the room, according to people who attended the meeting.
With Trump gone, Harris turned his ire to James Blair, one of the president’s top advisers. Harris accused Blair of wanting to find a Republican primary challenger to unseat him.
“I just work for the president, sir,” Blair responded, according to the people in the room. It wasn’t a denial.
Blair, a bald 36-year-old Florida operative who colleagues describe as intense and fiery, has become a critical figure in Trump’s second term—cajoling lawmakers, enforcing loyalty to Trump, shaping the president’s messaging on healthcare and the economy, and orchestrating the White House’s strategy for next year’s midterm elections. His fingerprints are so evident on the GOP’s redistricting plan that some White House aides refer to it as “Blairymandering.”
Blair’s title—deputy chief of staff—belies his influence. He was among seven senior officials, including the vice president and secretary of state, who represented the administration in a recent Vanity Fair photo shoot. He described himself to the publication as a “junkyard dog.”
“The president relies on him tremendously,” Russell Vought, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said in an interview.
Blair has, so far, mostly kept Republicans in lockstep behind Trump. He helped secure passage of Trump’s tax-and-spending package, limiting GOP defections and winning the support of Harris and other conservatives. In a statement, Harris said that “disagreements are not unusual during high-level negotiations,” and called Blair’s work “commendable.” A Harris spokeswoman disputed that the congressman raised the prospect of a primary challenge during the White House meeting.
But there are big challenges ahead. Blair is trying to stave off heavy Republican losses in the midterms amid deep voter frustration over Trump’s handling of high prices and resistance from his boss to recalibrating his economic message.
Blair is working to prevent fissures in the Republican Party from deepening. And he will have to persuade skeptical Republicans and courts to buy into his efforts to remake congressional maps.
No longer a ‘stiff’
Blair was brought onto Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign by then-campaign manager Susie Wiles, who now serves as White House chief of staff.
Wiles and Blair previously worked for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and later grew estranged from him after they were pushed out early in the governor’s first year in office. One of Blair’s first jobs for Trump during the 2024 primary was to attack DeSantis, often using information about the governor he gleaned from working for him.
After the assassination attempt on Trump in July 2024, Blair sometimes brought a bulletproof vest and gun to work, former campaign aides recalled.
Blair didn’t initially have a close relationship with Trump, who told aides at the time that he was a “stiff.” But Trump got to know Blair after the election and now talks to him regularly, according to White House officials.
Blair is hard-charging, prone to swearing and constantly on his phone, according to people who know him. Some in Washington call him the “Oracle” because of his encyclopedic knowledge of data. His sentences often begin with: “The president wants…”
“There is a reason that President Trump calls his White House Deputy chief of staff ‘Brilliant James,’” White House spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt said.
Blair has sometimes embraced the role of bad cop, delivering tough-to-swallow news to lawmakers. He told Republicans with concerns about the president’s tax-and-spending package that a vote against the legislation would be a vote against the president and his agenda and it would be treated as such, according to people familiar with the conversations. It was viewed by some lawmakers as a threat.
He often counsels Republican lawmakers about how they should vote, how they should run campaigns, when they shouldn’t seek higher office and when Trump is angry, the people who know him said. He reminds lawmakers that Trump is more popular in their districts than they are, sometimes bringing in polling to bolster his point. As Trump has pushed to nix the filibuster, Blair has privately met with senators in recent weeks to pitch potential changes and see whether they would reconsider, people at the meetings said.
Blair has begun giving advice to members on affordability that doesn’t always square with Trump’s public messaging, saying the issue will be at the center of the midterms.
‘Not a lot of deference’
Blair’s tactics have rankled some on Capitol Hill. Members have privately complained about how the White House doesn’t seem to understand Congress is a coequal branch of government. Some Republicans have announced retirements rather than face re-election, and others are considering retirement, senior Hill Republicans said.
Retiring Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene expressed frustration to White House officials earlier this year that Blair and the White House legislative affairs team were dismissive toward her, according to a person who heard the complaints. Her office didn’t respond to requests for comment.
“There is not a lot of deference,” to Congress, said Erick Erickson, a conservative activist and radio host. “There’s a lot of, ‘Here’s what we are going to do, and you better get on board.’”
In a written statement, Blair quoted from prepared remarks President John F. Kennedy was set to deliver in Dallas on the day he was assassinated: “There will always be dissident voices heard in the land, expressing opposition without alternatives, finding fault but never favor, perceiving gloom on every side, and seeking influence without responsibility.”
Blair has pressured members in competitive districts to run for re-election after learning that they were planning to retire or seek a different office. At times, the conversations have turned heated.
He discouraged Rep. Mike Lawler, a New York Republican, from running for governor in the state, and he advised Rep. Bill Huizenga against running for Senate in Michigan, according to people familiar with the matter, angering Huizenga. A spokesman for Huizenga declined to comment.
“Is he blunt? Sure. That’s a good thing as far as I’m concerned. One of the problems in Washington is that too many people are meek,” Lawler said. Blair said he was “extremely grateful” that members listened.
In recent months, Blair has turned his focus to the midterms. He delivered a PowerPoint presentation on particular races and strategies to White House aides and Trump advisers at Camp David. And he has interviewed candidates for dozens of potential races, asking questions about their loyalty to Trump, whether they support the president’s agenda, and how they plan to win.
Blair has described himself to associates as “pretty far to the right,” but he sometimes presents the president and his team with data showing the potential political vulnerabilities of the administration’s policies.
He has briefed White House officials on polling that shows immigration raids that focus on deporting criminals would be more popular than far-reaching raids. He gave Trump charts recently that showed how pessimistic many Americans were about the economy and pushed the president to talk about how he could help. He has argued internally that the White House and Trump will pay a political price if they don’t have a plan to take on healthcare costs, according to people who have spoken to him.
In April, Blair presented the president with an aggressive plan to redraw congressional maps in a bid to keep Republican control of the House. The plan was audacious, but Trump liked it and told Blair to go on offense, according to people familiar with the meeting.
Blair has tracked votes across states, kept tabs on court rulings, huddled with lawmakers in various states and worked in his personal time with outside groups to build political support for the president’s plans.
The campaign has had mixed results. In some states such as Kansas, Republican lawmakers have defied the White House, surprising even their Democratic colleagues, according to House Democratic Leader Brandon Woodard. In states such as Texas, Trump has captured a more favorable map. But that spurred states such as California to redraw their maps.
For weeks, Blair pressured Indiana lawmakers, including Republican state Senate leader Rodric Bray, to support a Trump-backed congressional redistricting plan in the state. In a phone call the night before a vote on the plan, Blair accused Bray of playing games and working against Republicans, according to a person with knowledge of the conversation. Bray told him that redrawing the state’s maps wasn’t appropriate.
“They have been loyal Trump supporters and when you start threatening them and going after them, it doesn’t show an understanding of your audience very well,” said Marc Short, a former Trump official turned critic.
Bray wasn’t swayed, and Indiana lawmakers rejected the plan. Now, Trump allies are threatening not to back the state’s Republican leaders in primaries.
Write to Josh Dawsey at Joshua.Dawsey@WSJ.com