AMNA NAWAZ: President Trump has sought to deflect blame in last night's sweeping Republican losses.

But within the party, some are beginning to ask whether they have been too deferential to the president and whether the GOP needs to rethink its identity.

To discuss what comes next for Republicans, we're joined by David Holt.

He's the Republican mayor of Oklahoma City.

Mayor Holt, welcome back to the "News Hour."

Thanks for joining us.

DAVID HOLT (R), Mayor of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Absolutely.

Thank you.

AMNA NAWAZ: So it was a tough night for your party.

You posted on X last night this message, writing: "A political party that's morally and intellectually bankrupt deserves the rebuke of the American people."

It's very strong language.

So what do you think Republicans could or should have done to avoid that rebuke, to mitigate some of those losses?

DAVID HOLT: Well, how much time do you have?

(LAUGHTER) DAVID HOLT: We 10 years ago as a party -- I wouldn't say I was a part of this decision and that -- or that I have gone along with it -- that we as a party ultimately ceded our decision-making and our intellectual capacity to one person and really became a cult of personality, instead of what we had been, at least for the remainder of my adult life, which was a party of ideas, a conventional American political party trying to bring together enough people to win an election and build a coalition.

It changed 10 years ago.

And so I don't think this was a -- like something we could have messaged better in the last two weeks.

I mean, I think we made a fundamental decision to really not be the Republican Party anymore, but to be this banner carrier for Trumpism, for a specific individual and his whims and desires, and to be the MAGA party.

And what happened last night was such a total rejection of Trumpism and MAGA that really that party now no longer exists as a functional political movement.

AMNA NAWAZ: We should point out your state of Oklahoma was one of the few bright spots for Republicans, right?

You still control the governorship, both Senate seats, all five congressional seats.

So if this was a referendum on the president, what do those results tell you about where Oklahoma is?

DAVID HOLT: You're correct.

I mean, the Republican nominee for governor did win in Oklahoma last night, but certainly the writing was on the wall that something was shifting even in Oklahoma, maybe not enough to shift all the way over to exchange control.

But I have often pointed out, I mean, I'm a student of politics in my part of the country, and Oklahoma always follows Texas a few years later.

We did in the '90s and in the 2000s, and so anyone who doesn't take pretty serious lesson from what happened last night in Texas in my neck of the woods is just living on borrowed time, because that's going to happen in Oklahoma.

Oklahomans, Texans, Americans, they're ready to move into a different kind of conversation.

And they still want, in my view, a center-right party, and this country needs a center-right conservative party.

But people are wanting a normal party that's competent, that's talking about the real priorities that are in front of us, the real challenges and opportunities that are in front of us.

And, ultimately, that's just not what was being offered.

The MAGA movement had exhausted itself.

AMNA NAWAZ: If there is one thing you want to see from your party and party leadership right now that you think could be some kind of a course correction, what's that first step?

DAVID HOLT: Well, we have to return to being a political party again with a platform and ideas, and we have to be serious.

I mean, too much of what you have seen from Republican governance the last few years is really seemed geared more towards entertainment.

And we need -- this isn't professional wrestling.

This is governance.

So we have to be serious.

We have to be talking about pocketbook issues, not reflecting pools and arches.

We have to be meeting people where they are.

I mean, I don't think this is going to be like some quick turnaround.

I think this is going to be a multiyear conversation, but it finally began last night, and it needed to.

And this country needs two real parties.

And I think we're finally going to -- we're finally going to have that conversation that we have needed to have really for the better part of a decade.

AMNA NAWAZ: That is the Republican mayor of Oklahoma City, David Holt, joining us tonight.

Mayor Holt, thank you for your time.

It's good to speak with you.

DAVID HOLT: Likewise.

Thank you.