The Daily Blast: Trump Press Sec Goes Full Cult in Odd Rants as Polls Take Brutal Turn

I'm your host, Greg Sargent.

“We've noticed an interesting pattern. Whenever the news gets particularly bad for Donald Trump,”

White House press secretary Caroline Levitt's cult-like obsequiousness gets dialed up to 11. That just happened after Trump was hit with a brutal news cycle on multiple fronts. Those fronts include increasing signs that the U.S. might have bombed an Iranian elementary school, terrible new jobs numbers, and the firing of homeland security secretary Kristi Nome. Trump's presidency is in trouble, and it's at moments like this that his

sick of fans really step it up. We're trying to make sense of all this with Solon's Amanda Marcott, who dissects Trump world as well as anyone out there. Amanda, how is good to have you on? Thanks for having me.

So first, we apologize for doing two episodes in a row involving Caroline Levitt, but we

think this is really important. Here's Levitt's latest. Donald Trump exploded on truth social, insisting that the war will not stop until Iran commits to unconditional surrender. That sure sounds like regime change as the goal. So Caroline Levitt tried to clean this up. Listen to this exchange. What is the president mean when he calls for unconditional surrender? Is he saying that

the regime has to fully relinquish control? What the president means is that when he, as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces determines that Iran no longer poses a threat to the United States of America, and the goals of Operation Epic Fury has been fully realized, then Iran will essentially be

“in a place of unconditional surrender. Whether they say it themselves or not?”

Okay, I mean, that's just insane. The Iranian regime must fully surrender. How will we know when that has happened? Not when it actually happens, just when dear leader says it has happened. This is just bizarrely cult-like. What do you think, Amanda? I had the worst flashback to George W. Bush and his flight suit with his mission accomplished banner. And the Iraq war, and I mean, he made the same mistake. He put a little bit more

effort into the mistake. I think he maybe just didn't fly completely by the seat of his pants, but he still made the same mistake, which is, if I say the war is over, if I say it's done, if I say we have succeeded, then that will somehow make it. So, and it just turns out that's not actually true. I mean, how many years did the war drag past the mission accomplished banner? This is not how it works. You can't just say they have

unconditionally surrendered when they're still shooting at you in throwing bombs and doing what, fighting back. And who knows what could happen in the aftermath of this? And of course, you know, the United States could essentially decimate the Iranian regime and then Trump could declare victory at that point and go home. Any one of these scenarios is possible. But what's kind of alarming is this sort of setting of the table for Trump gets to say what reality is. That's

why I find this so, so disheartening, right? And so, disparating to watch, you have Trump himself popping off and just tweeting out, here's the new war goal, right? The new war goal is unconditional surrender. And instead of like hearing from people in the administration who know stuff, who know what they're talking about, all we get is his chief propagandist telling us that that's absolutely, you know, a brilliant way to describe what's happening and you know, he'll get to say when it

has happened. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, I will say maybe I'm just a polyana or maybe I'm just an eternal optimist, but I can't help but see the escalating, everything is great, nothing is wrong, dear leader knows everything. And if dear leader says this one day and he says the next the next

“day or honestly with Trump and the Iran war, it changes by the hour, like what he claims the”

objectives are. I mean, they're basically trying to insert not just that dear leader knows everything,

but that there's sense to be made out of this putting brain nonsense that's coming out of him. And the the louder and the more insistent and the harder the clapping gets, the more I just feel like that's all they have. And there's a a stench of desperation coming from Caroline love it. Let's check out a little bit more of Caroline love it here. She was asked about

against foreign entanglement, et cetera, et cetera. So she was asked about that.

“Levits said the following. President Trump is the leader of maga. He's the creator of the”

maga movement and there is nothing more America first than taking out terrorists who have

maimed and killed our own servicemen and women who chant death to America and who pose a threat to the homeland. And so President Trump is a leader of the peace through strength foreign policy doctrine. He attempted peace through diplomacy exhaustively and extensively with the Rogarani and regime. And so they have been struck with the strength and the sheer might and will of the United States armed forces and President Trump has proven he's a man of his word. Okay, that too is just

so crazy. Maga is whatever Trump says it is. Any legitimate aspirations or fears that Trump voters or maga influencers have of excessive foreign military adventurism can just be wiped out by a mighty fought law from the movement leader, right? And then of course there's the bizarrely obsequious way if he keeps circling back to praise of Trump himself. What did you

“make of this one? It's really kind of interesting. I think that once again, I smell desperation.”

And I think a lot of the dynamics that palace intrigue but also what's kind of going on in the right-wing media can point to what the larger problem they're facing which is it's increasingly clear to everyone in the maga movement that Donald Trump is not going to be there for another term. Let's not only illegal, he's turning 80 this year. He's in poor health. He has this vile rash on his neck. He has total pudding brain. His hands. We all know he's not looking good. He sounds terrible.

And he's probably just not going to be able to run again even if it was legal. And so everyone is trying to figure out what maga looks like after Donald Trump. But from Donald Trump's perspective or from the perspective of Caroline Levitt who needs to make him feel good to keep her job, we have to keep up the solution that he's going to live forever and that this debate about what happens next is not even happening because dear leader will live forever. And I think that's

kind of what's going on. And again, you don't live forever. Biology catches up with you. And I do think that he's not going to be able to tamp down these tensions within the party that long. Yeah, you know, I hadn't even thought about this way, but sort of the constant drumbeat of

Trump as invincible. Trump is strong. Trump is powerful. Trump is the, you know, the the great leader

of of maga and so forth. It is also about the very visible signs of Trump's physical decline mental decline as well. And his mortality isn't it? I mean, it's, it's really that is the thing that's sort of hovering over all of this. He's not going to be there forever. He's on his way out. You know, this is a last hurrah, right? He's getting to blow up a bunch of things. This cool,

“you know, great. He's very powerful and strong last hurrah. But that's what's lurking behind”

all this kind of obsequiousness, I think. I think to a large degree, and it's really profound in this particular issue, because you have JD Vans who I really do think it's clear that he did not want this Iran war. He was shut out of the decision-making whether was going to happen. He's

trying to make himself seem powerful by saying he has some saying how it happened. But he's also

trying to make it clear to source, like, by on background to reporters that he didn't want this, because he knows, or he believes. And I think there's a good reason to believe this at the future of Magga is through this America first isolationist concept that they actually were able to like cobble together a coalition with some swing voters by saying no more wars, right? And this is bad for that. This is very bad for JD Vans. And so he has a real incentive to distance himself from

Trump. And if you're, but he also has, like, a fear that if he does that too much, Trump is going to cut him loose. So he's in a weird position, but I have to assume that Trump is aware of these tensions, that he's aware that a lot of people are circling, and think they're going to be next, and he does not like it. Yeah, for sure. Well, and all this comes after some pretty bad news for Trump, an elementary school was bombed in Southern Iran, 175 people were killed, mostly children.

The New York Times did this devastating video analysis showing that the US was conducting strikes right in that area at the same time as the bombing of the school. And Reuters reports that US military investigators think it's likely that the bombing was done by US forces.

the worst atrocity towards civilians in decades. Now, there's nothing apologetic coming from Trump world at all. Do you hear anything like that? No, and I have a small amount of optimism

“that this is going to break through to voters. I think that there is sometimes a tendency to”

tune out the carnage that the US government has inflicted on other people.

Not always. I mean, Iraq war, a lot of the time the war crimes get mo, the terrible things that

happened, broke through and people got angry about it. But in this case, it's little girls. And that's always tough to hit until it'll swallow. And I think it's also because this is happening at the same time that they were waging war at home on their own residents and citizens, many of whom are also children, right? You know, the assault on Minneapolis was understood as an assault on children in a lot of ways. We have that little kid with his little bunny ears being hauled

off to a center. We have that woman holding up a baby for the cameras in El Paso. And we're beginning to see that the racist and fascistic policies of the Trump administration, a harm

“children, and I think that that is getting through to people. There's serious evidence. I've seen”

that especially some Republican voting women are starting to feel awfully queasy about inflicting so much death and destruction on children. To stay up to date on all the news that you need to know, there's no better place than right here on the DSR network. And there's no better way to enjoy the DSR network than by becoming a member. Members enjoying ad-free listening experience, access to our discord community, exclusive content, early episode access, and more.

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So let's talk about 50% cost-probeware, and there's always a flexible time.

Now let's take a look at stepstown.de/alljobs. Stepstown is one of the most important talents for all jobs. Back in the day of the day of the day, and that's very interesting. It's definitely a through line there. And the other through line, of course, is un-shackled state violence, right? And I want to float an actual polling number as well. G. Eliot Morris, the data analyst, averaged together a bunch of polls on Iran, and he took the high quality ones. And he found that

an average of 38%, only 38% approved of the Iran War or Trump's handling of it. Those are bad numbers, and so you take that along with this news about the school, and this is going badly for them politically. And so if you step back and keep that in your head, and then listen to Caroline Levitt sort of go full cult the way she does over and over, you can kind of see what's really going on there, right? Like they are full culting in order to drown out

“the bad news. That's what I think's going on as well. Both drown it out, keep it from”

dear leaders, ears, obviously, but also like drown it out in the in the public realm. Like, you know, if everything's if Trump is just eternally strong and and vulnerable and then invincible, then they're can't be bad news by definition, right? Yeah, 38% is such a fascinating number, right? Because that's the number for a decade now that we know is basically the negative diets, right? The people that really are in the cult, the people that really will

never, ever, ever admit that Trump is wrong about anything, right? Those third, third,

38 is where he fell after the Virginia like riots in 2017, you know, the racist riots,

that's kind of where those are the people that are in the cult, those are American fascists will

never change and what he needs is a little bit more than that. But he's the fact that they're

doing only base management that they're strictly trying to remind their base. Remember, if you admit that Trump did something wrong, the liberals were right and we can never allow that. It says to me that they're afraid that they can't even keep that 38%. And they're not, I think on this, they may not be wrong because one of the things that Trump allowed Trump to win in the first place was he really kind of held himself out as absolution for all the people that voted for George W. Bush

and had residual resentment, guilt, and shame over what happened there. And Trump was a different

kind of Republican. So they could trust that he was never going to shame them like,

“Bush did with the Iraq war. But that's what he's doing. He's doing exactly the same thing,”

except more hand-thisterly and stupider. Yeah, well, the base management element is really interesting. If I understand you correctly, you're basically saying that when Caroline Levitt goes out there and says, MAGA is what Trump says it is. She's saying to the base, don't let the liberals be right. Yeah, I think at the end of the day, the most important psychology that keeps these people on board is just that like admitting that Trump is bad or wrong or a failure is admitting that all those

people for a decade who've been telling you you made a mistake were right. And what's weird is the longer this drugs on the harder is for them to let go without some kind of off ramp. And I will say, like, if there ever was an off ramp, I do kind of think the Iran war might be it because again,

they don't want another Bush. Trump ran pretty explicitly the first time is I am not another

Bush. He made fun of the Bush that was in the race and here he is another Bush. All the Republicans

“are losers. That's the crox, right? Yeah, so he he lied to them pretty directly. And I think”

if they want to take that, they can use it as their way out, which is to say, well, I thought it was voting for no more wars and and die was like to. Yeah, and she's trying to say you can't do that. Levitt is trying to say, so we also just learned that the economy lost 92,000 jobs in February, which caps a stretch in which job creation was significantly worse on Trump's watch than on his predecessors watch. Trump's polling on the economy has been absolutely brutal of late. The tariffs are completely

underwater and his general economic approval is also completely underwater. So if you take that along with the 38% of his sport, the Iran war, you're looking at a presidency that's on very shaky ground, aren't you? And that's before the midterms, right? I think that we need to understand if Democrats win both the House and the Senate. Trump is in very real danger for one thing that the thing he's been trying to avoid for a year now, which is the full release of the F-steen

files is coming down on him. And, you know, all sorts of other accountability could be in play. His economic approval is an terrible shape. He's losing ground on national security and his immigration numbers are upside down. Harry, Anthony, of CNN, just put out new numbers where he said Trump has lost 20 points on net approval on immigration in the last year or so. If you've got something that may be unprecedented in which the Republican president is losing ground and throwing

away the traditional Republican to banage on three different things, the economy, immigration, and national security. You've got all this bad news coming out. And so to what degree do you think that's linked directly to these kinds of displays of sequence cultures from Levin? Like, it seems to me that there's like several layers to it. Like, one layer is that, you know, she just wants to make Trump feel better, right? Then there's the other dimension to it, which is that he is physically

in decline. And all of MAGA world knows that they are looking at a world beyond Trump after he's passed,

“passed from the scene, maybe passed from this earth as well. And so I think that you really can”

see the psychology of MAGA sort of, you know, in the raw when they go out there and and hail

I agree that her first and foremost motivation is making her boss feel good so she keeps her job.

I don't, I would love to like look inside her head and see if she actually thinks it makes a difference to say these obsequious, like, laughable things. If she thinks she's actually persuading anybody or if it's just Trump her, like, managing her boss's feelings because it might just be

“that. And, you know, they don't have any other tools. I think is probably a piece of this.”

Like the traditional, the truths that MAGA has used to sort of bamboozle a lot of people in the past are falling apart on them. And I don't think that they know what to do. I,

I think we're seeing a lot of people who are behaving like they don't know what to do.

They don't know what to, like, what's going to happen next there at the whims of a material boss who may not be remembering super well what he said one minute to the next. And they just, I, I think that there is no plan here. I think that they're just kind of winging it in the most, like, ridiculous way. And it makes me happy because I don't think that that's a sustainable plan, but I don't know that there's much more to it. I definitely don't think

“Caroline Levitt is going out there and talking to cameras like she's Baghdad, Baghdad Bob,”

because she thinks that that's going to turn the tide in any way. Right. I don't think she thinks she's going to move the middle, but a lot of this is base management and just can you wrap up sort of your thoughts on that? Like, you know, the basis is being bombarded by a lot of mixed signaling. They're sort of in this propaganda bubble to some degree, but then like on the outer edges of the mag of base, you're going to see people who get pretty damn upset about the

kid, the kid getting thrown into detention with the, you know, the child's hat, and they're going to get pretty damn upset about people getting shot in their cars on the street by Steven Miller's paramilitary goons and pretty damn upset about the bombing of a school. So it's almost like

“going out and then saying to those people, this man is invincible and perfect, is like another insults,”

but they don't see it that way. You know what I mean? Like, and that's where it breaks down for me. If you're trying to hold maga together, why are you telling the people who are going to be upset by these horrors that this man is, you know, of unquestionable greatness? I don't get it. It's foolish. I would say like, I watch Fox News sometimes and other right-wing propaganda ists who are much more effective at this stuff like Tucker Carlson or Candace Bellwinds or the

people that the maga base actually is putting their trust in more and more every day. And that's not how they play this. The, like, when Trump is fucking up and they don't know how to, like, they can't defend it. Their strategy is to say the left is worse. The left is dangerous. The left is kayak. The left is demonic. And they're the bad guys. You know, the problem with Renee good getting, and now it's pretty getting shot is that these people won't stand their houses, that they

won't stop fussing with ice. The problem is the protesters are violent. The problem is blah, blah, blah.

Basically, a what about is them is they're most effective strategy. And then you look at the White House themselves and they have abandoned what it has traditionally been. They're most effective strategy of distraction and, like, deflection. And instead are just saying, shut up. Trump can't do anything wrong. And I just, I, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe these people are so deep in the cult that there's just not even going to be defectors. But traditionally, even in, like, cult psychology,

you find that a lot of people when they're told to shut up and just obey the cult leader maybe they do because they don't have any other choice when they're in an actual cult when they can't leave. But they actually do question and they do resist and they do internally, field out. And the thing with Magofoters is, you know, they don't have nearly as many constraints on their ability to leave as somebody who's actually like living in Jones town, you know.

Well, yeah. And we should probably clarify that none of this necessarily means Democrats win the house. Obviously, they are favored for the house pretty clearly right now. But Trump could

reaching some sort of point in this war pretty soon, where he essentially declares victory

in some way that's not completely nuts. You could see something of an economic rebound maybe. You could see them dial back the paramilitary executions of Americans in U.S. cities. So you could kind of see him come back a little bit, right? And you could see the house being more contested

“than it looks right now. I think that's all possible. But right now, it seems like his presidency”

isn't some trouble. What are your final thoughts on that? Yeah. I know I agree. Like the firing of

Nome is a good leading indicator, right? They had a no scouts policy in the White House because they didn't want to give their enemies the satisfaction. And now they have decided that they have to sort of take some of the blame for these political failure, stick it on somebody and throw overboard

“and hope that that helps. It shows that they are running out of options. And I agree with you,”

like they could rebound. I wouldn't give any. I wouldn't just say this is a den deal. My biggest fear is that Trump just pulls out of Iran to clear his victory and hopes that nobody notices the fallout, which is totally possible because Americans don't pay a ton of attention to foreign policy. But at this point in time, they aren't doing very well. And I don't think that they have any idea of how to make things better. So if things improve, it might just be by luck for them.

But I don't know that we're looking at people that know how to fix the the shit show they've gotten themselves into. Right. They are certainly not acting as if they are in the middle of the shit show and they are in the middle of the shit show. It's just obvious to the rest of the world.

Amanda Markot, wonderful to talk to you as always. Thank you so much for coming on.

Thanks for having me. You've been doing this for the whole time. You're just talking about the shit show. And then you're

“hoping that it's a shame. No, not like the shit show. So my taste base. Do you think that's all?”

Yeah, exactly. Like the shit show is the shit show that you just understand. The shit show is the job or the unsu-caste-gross. I don't really like the shit show. The shit show is the shit show. With this shit show.