The Daily Blast: Trump Blurts Out Plot to Rig Midterms after Humiliating Fox Poll Hits

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For all in the vaccination. Let's go to the list of choppy-fi.de. This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I'm your host, Greg Sargent. Donald Trump just got hit with an absolutely crushing pole from Fox News.

Disapproval of Trump on the economy is at a new high, and his ratings on inflation are simply awful. This includes among Republicans. In that context, Trump's rambling to report his Thursday was revealing. He again urged Republicans to pass draconian voter suppression legislation, but he accidentally admitted that this is about preventing Democrats from winning elections.

And on top of all that, Republicans are revolting against Trump in a fresh way. Things are really falling apart for him. Can we sustain this through a election day? We're talking to MS now opinion editor James Downey, who has a good piece laying out how Trump is hitting all kinds of historic lows. James, nice to have you on.

Great to be back. So let's start with Trump's rambling to reporters. He brought up the save act, which is a vile piece of voter suppression legislation that would probably disenfranchise millions of people. And then said that Democrats are trying to block it.

Listen, the Democrats don't want to pass. Now, I tell you what, the Democrat voters do want to pass 87 percent, but the Democrat politicians don't want to pass.

And the reason is that they'd never be elected again,

because with their policy of open borders, transgender for everyone. I call it transgender mutalization of your children for everybody. Men playing in women sports, all of the, the stuff that they do high taxes. They want to tax it. OK, it's complete nonsense that Democratic voters want to pass the save act,

but no, how Trump openly says there that passing it would mean Democrats never win another election. He actually says straight out that his voter suppression bill would lead to one party rule in the GOP's favor, and that this would be good. Your reaction to that, James. Well, the clip practically speaks for itself. I think, from the end of Trump's presidency,

but particularly in the last couple of months, we've seen from the, the so-called weaponization fund to the arch to all sorts of efforts to, of self in the Richmond. This is a man who, more than ever, wants to avoid accountability.

“And the only way to do that is to stay in power forever.”

And the fact that he is pushing this sort of save act versus say, a bill to help on the economy, or to bring down gas prices by ending the war with Iran, shows that he isn't really interested in winning the voters over in any sort of regular normal way. He wants the, rather, cheat, any rather rigged the election. Everything is about his monuments to himself and about preventing accountability for those things.

Basically, that's what we're, where we are. I mean, literally, everything Trump talks about pretty much all the time is the arch, the ball room.

Now, he's got this new $1.8 billion slush fund that he's going to use to reward allies.

And that's got to be sort of lumped in with voter suppression as yet another way to try and corruptly rig the system, right? Absolutely. I think that the slush fund, you know, can be seen as, and my colleagues, Lucian Lima, at MSNL has written about this, you know, can be seen as basically not only rewarding past insurrection attempts, but a promise to future to people who are considering insurrection attempts in the future that,

hey, this is a way you can get money. Like, this is a way you can make money that, that there will be something there for you on the other side of it. Well, totally. So this week's Fox News poll is really something else. Trump's approval among registered voters on the economy is 29 percent, 71 percent disapprove. These numbers have risen substantially in recent months. James, this is looking like something pretty close to total collapse on the

“economy. Wouldn't you say? Absolutely. I think, and not just on the economy, though, that is the”

big reason. You know, that's the most outstanding number, but total collapse in general. But you see a big move, particularly, as you said, on the economy in the last two to three months, as gas prices are spike because of the Iran War. And it's brought down his opinion, polls in general. We're

the for for any president. And that it takes, it takes a lot of effort to sort of to reach those numbers. A lot of, a lot of almost deliberate incompetence. I just want to read a couple more numbers here on foreign policy. He's at 38 percent to 62 percent on inflation. He's at 24 percent to 76 percent, 76 percent. That's more than three quarters of the country disapproving of his handling of the

single most important issue to voters right now. He's even crept underwater on border security,

as well, which was literally the one thing where he was staying above water. He's now underwater on that as well. And this isn't a Fox News poll. I was struck by the right up of the poll. They always generally try to come up with some way to soft pedal the findings. They say, well, there's this good finding for Trump. This was a harsh right up by Fox News, where they were

“pretty blunt that he's in real trouble. Yeah, I think even Fox News, there's no way you can”

can spend these numbers. And it's not just Fox News. Obviously, you know, you have the near-time Seattle poll that came out recently, minus 22 similar number for Trump. The polling averages are looking similar. Nate Silver minus 20 has him out of my average of minus 21. The near-time's polling average, similar number. G. Elliot Morris is a number who I believe you've had as a guest on your show in the past minus 24 and 60 percent disapproval on

average, which is just a remarkable number. And then just today, we had the American

Research Group poll was the first that I've seen that put Trump at 31 percent approval. 31 percent.

And yes, that's just one poll. But even one poll at that number is a remarkably low reading for any president. We are getting close to George tell the U. Bush post Katrina Iraq numbers here. I want to bring up still more numbers in the Fox poll, because they go a little more directly to what's happening to Maga. Trump's approval has dropped to new lows among Republicans who don't identify as Maga, 54 percent. Among white voters, it's dropped to 43 percent. And among rural voters,

it's dropped to 43 percent. Those are his approval numbers among those constituencies. And among independence, his approval is 24 percent. This is fewer than one in four in the country to be barely above water among Republican voters who are non-Maga and substantially underwater with whites and rural voters. That cuts deep into the coalition that elected Trump. That coalition is gone. It's fallen apart. James, the whole story we've been told about Trump for years has

been that he has this rock solid floor because his base will never leave him. But now,

“big swaths that are leaving him. What do you make of that? I think that the economy matters a lot.”

On the one hand, one story I'd like to tell is that historically is that Herbert Hoover still got 35 percent of the vote in 1932 after four years of the Great Depression. But that was still a huge loss from his numbers in 1928. And the economy matters a lot to a lot of people. And the people, sometimes who say that they're now disapproving, maybe they're not going to show up at the voting place and vote for the opposite party, but they might just not show up at all. So it can turn

up in a number different ways. And then I think, also more generally, Trump kind of set himself up for this. He promised prices would come down on day one. He promised no more forever wars. He promised that basically to a lot of voters that their lives would be sunshine and rainbows, the moment he was back in office. And not only has it not happened, but he has been very publicly working against improving their lives and prioritizing things like the slush fund and like his

“arch and his ballroom. To stay up to date on all the news that you need to know,”

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Well, James, do you think there's actually an opportunity here for Democrats to start making real in-rout with some of these constituencies that have been hard for them to reach.

white voters, non-college whites, rural voters, even rural whites, men are turning against him.

These obviously are constituencies that were terrible for Democrats in 2024. Don't have to get into why right now. But there's actually an opportunity with good candidates in the right places, in some of these tough areas for Democrats like rural Pennsylvania, parts of Georgia, for them to actually start making the case to these constituencies, that it's time to give up on Trump in the Republican Party.

“Absolutely. I think that the longer this economic pain goes on, the longer that gas is at,”

it's as high as it is, the longer that people continue to feel like they are either barely making it by or falling behind the longer that inflation continues to outpace wages,

which it did again. We now know that it did for the past year, and that's the first time

that that's happened since the middle of the worst of the Biden presidency inflation. The more chance that gives Democrats to make inroads in the Republican coalition, just as in 2024, as you said, we not only did they do poorly with sort of more traditional Republican constituencies that maybe they would have hoped to make inroads in, but also they lost some things like younger voters, non-white voters who they might have fought, were part of their coalition,

and a lot of those voters either didn't turn up or they voted Republican because of concerns about

“the about the economy. So I think it's really, I think the economy gives Democrats a real chance”

to now turn that around and to start making inroads in the Trump coalition.

Well, two more Fox news numbers just because they go to the point that you just made among Hispanics. Donald Trump's approval is 33% to 67%. That's staggering. It's clear that any gains that Trump made among Hispanics are just gone. Among working class voters, meaning voters without a college degree, he's at 40% approval to 60%. Again, the inroads he made with non-white working class gone, this is a real opportunity to, as you say, for Democrats to both start making

inroads into some of these constituencies that have historically been tough for them, and to repair the damage with these other constituencies that Donald Trump was able to take away from Democrats. Where do you see this going? The big story has been that Republicans are on offense because they've been able to redistrict now. They've been able to rig the elections and their favor and they're going to win. But numbers like these will just absolutely swamp any redistricting that Republicans have

“done, I think. I don't want to get too confident at all. Obviously, Democrats are going to have to win”

the popular vote probably by around three points at least right now. But it's starting to look like that's more than doable because time is running out for them and Trump is tanking and he's not turning it around. What do you think? Yeah, as you said, the usually gain of seven, eight, nine, ten seats about, however much Republicans end up netting out in this, in these cherry-mandering efforts, that would make a big difference in an election where in-house elections, where especially

there's a shrinking number of competitive seats anyway. But the numbers that we're seeing, the Congress, the degenerate congressional bow continues to the averages continue to widen, I believe, that the time's ahead around plus 10, that would be well above what, as you said, well above what Democrats would need for to flip the house. And of course, the Senate is not something you can Jeremy, I was sorry, the Senate may be biased towards rural voters, but you can't

cherry-mandering. I think that in terms of how it plays out, I think that, for Democrats to really make emers in that coalition, and I think you see it in this Fox, but you see it in a lot of polls, there's not even as Democrats do well even on the congressional ballot and Trump struggle goals. There's a lot of voters who are not happy with a Democratic party and are not, don't feel like the party is fighting hard enough for regular voters interest. And where that

would tie in, I think with what we've seen out of Washington's past week, is that Republicans are realizing they can't defend the corruption of the slush fund and the corruption behind the ballroom and things like that. And I think that broader theme of corruption and of fighting against

And I think you've seen some candidates like John Osloff and Georgia have been moving on that.

“Messaging, I don't think it's a coincidence that Osloff is now taking what many saws might have”

been a toss-up race in the Georgia Senate contest, and now most people feel that Osloff is pretty well on to keep it. Which is really striking because Donald Trump won Georgia in 2024, Biden had won it in 2020, but it sure looked like that was a temporary blip. And now it's looking like maybe Democrats can continue to seriously contest it. To your point about the slush fund and Republicans turning against it, that is happening. The slush fund is actually being rejected

by Republican senators, which is a rare thing. Punch ball news reporter ends your desidario reports that at a Senate GOP lunch on Thursday, two dozen senators objected to the fund, they now want to place restrictions on the fund in the reconciliation process. But it got even more interesting. According to this reporter, one GOP senator texted him, quote, "Our majority is melting down before our eyes." This is pretty remarkable stuff. The slush fund is, you know,

“it's a bit of an insider inside DC story. I think it not as vivid as the, as the ballroom,”

with its powerful imagery of Trump destroying the East Wing of the White House to build an

enormous neural-like monument to himself. But Republicans just are at the end of their tether with this guy. They don't want to be associated with the corrupt schemes anymore. Yeah, I think the slush fund, I mean, first of all, the name, you know, the ease with which Democrats can just say, I mean, this is, it's an unregulated fund for Trump's allies. I mean, it is very clearly a slush fund. It's very easy to rename. And then also, I think that, you know,

January 6 was, thank goodness, not very popular to say the least with independent voters and wall. And that means that in any TV package or social media video about this fund, you're going to have footage of January 6. You know, any ad. It's going to be people breaking it, you know, it's going to be people breaking windows and hitting cops with flag polls. And I

don't think that's going to pull very well. There's sort of a three-line here, which is basically

hubris Donald Trump went out there earlier this week and stated straight out that his slush fund will go to insurrectionists. He said basically that that was the right thing to do because the insurrectionists were right. So he admitted that he's using this slush fund full of taxpayer money to reward people who tried to violently overthrow an election on his behalf. He just admits it straight out here on this clip that we just heard. He's admitting straight out that he

wants to openly rig the system in order to instill an entrench one party rule forever. There's a level of hubris here that's almost impossible to get your head around. But it's sure looking like I sure hope anyway. It's sure looking like all the pieces are coming together for

“a truly epic repudiation. Don't you think? I think so. I just said, the just going back to the”

polls, you know, we're used to think of Donald Trump as unpopular and he has been an unpopular president throughout his entire terms. But this no president has ever been this unpopular at this point in his term. No, which throughout the history of public opinion polling, no president has been this unpopular at this point, this early in a term. And that and so we're entering on charter territory where we've got more than two years to go and you've got a president who is already less than two

or less than two and five Americans support him. And there's no signs of it slowing down, especially while gas prices remain this high. So where we go from here, it's on charter waters to drink. Well, as Donald Trump himself would say, nobody has ever seen anything like these poll numbers and as you say, we don't know where it's going to end up, but it's struggling good right now. James Downey, awesome to talk to you. Thanks for coming on. Thanks for having me.

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