On Tuesday night, longtime conservative radio host Erick Erickson warned his fellow Republicans that it is time to “move on” from President Donald Trump. Appearing on NewsNation, Erickson argued that the White House has not absorbed the message of the GOP’s historic midterm defeat and is instead doubling down on the very behaviors that dealt the party a generational blow. His comments place him among the conservative voices now pressing their own party to reassess rather than stay the course.

According to Erickson, the biggest “shock” following the midterms “is that the president and the White House have decided to double down as opposed to pivoting after the election.” He noted that “Clinton, Bush, and Obama, and even Biden, to a degree, all pivoted after midterms,” but asserted that “Trump’s going to double down” because “he’s only got two more years and is never held accountable by the voters again.”

Erickson is not the only observer to note that Trump appears to have ignored the lesson offered by the midterms. In his first appearance after the elections, the president wandered around the ballroom construction site with the press, even though polls made it clear that Americans think he has overprioritized such projects. A few days later, it was announced that Stephen Miller would become the new chief of staff; Miller is widely credited with helming Trump’s unpopular deportation campaign and with generally contributing to the president’s most extreme impulses.

Erickson argued that the GOP, too, seems not to have learned from the midterms. With the selection of Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) — a fierce Trump ally — as House leader, he said that “The Republican Party has doubled down again on hardcore MAGA politics.” Fox News anchor Gillian Turner made a similar observation following Jordan’s selection, saying, “This certainly signals, at least on the part of the Republicans who voted for him, that they are not interested in modifying their platform in response to the midterms.”

Jordan has also long been a supporter of Trump’s efforts to deny the outcome of the 2020 election, and is likely to back the president as he renews such claims. Reacting to a social media post in which Trump questioned the election results, NewsNation’s Lauren Wright asked, “What could possibly be the benefit of this? … I don’t think I understand.”

Erickson asserted that “there is no benefit to it,” explaining, “This is Donald Trump being Donald Trump. And the party needs to realize that he’s now a lame duck and they’re going to have to start moving on from him. I think they’ll decide it’s better to ignore him than to fight him.” The lame-duck framing carries structural weight: under the Constitution’s two-term limit, a president serving a second term cannot seek re-election, changing the calculus for party lawmakers weighing how closely to align with the White House going forward.

In his view, however, too many people in Trump’s base “want to double down on crazy,” making claims, for example, that the elections in Texas and Georgia were stolen. “The data not only doesn’t show that, it shows exactly the opposite — it shows frustration,” said Erickson, concluding, “The Republicans are going to get pummeled in 2028 if they don’t figure this out.” How the party responds — whether lawmakers heed his counsel to tune the president out, and whether the White House adjusts course — will help define the GOP’s posture heading into the 2028 elections he referenced.