'Don't do this!' GOP pollster at a loss on CNN over new clip of Trump

President Donald Trump is threatening to fracture his party by deliberately trying to set up a succession rivalry within his own Cabinet, longtime GOP analyst and focus group expert Frank Luntz told CNN's Brianna Keilar on Friday.

Keilar played a clip of Trump — who at least for now seems to have abandoned his dreams of an illegal third term — playing up the idea of a 2028 presidential ticket that features both Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, but leaving open who would lead the ticket and who would be the running mate.

"Who likes JD Vance? Who likes Marco Rubio?" asked Trump in the clip, registering the applause for both. "All right, sounds like a good ticket, JD. It's a perfect that was a perfect ticket, by the way. I do believe that's a dream team, but these are minor details. That does not mean you have my endorsement under any circumstance."

"What do you think of that moment?" Keilar asked Luntz.

"I just — I asked a single word. Why?" Luntz responded. "Why do you want to create division in your own administration?"

To create "competition" right in the middle of a hotly contested midterm that is threatening to obliterate the GOP's gains, where they need as much unity as possible, makes no sense, he said. "Don't do this."

Unfortunately, Luntz said, Trump doesn't have any honest people around him anymore to tell him, "This is foolish."

"I understand he's provocative," he added. "I understand he likes this tumult." However, this is the moment where Trump needs to double down, because "his House and Senate majorities are at stake, and they will not be strengthened by playing around like that."

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