The Daily Blast: Trump Tailspins as Latest Plot to Rig Midterms Is Mocked Even on Fox

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Older. Just a bit. Older. Stay out there. [GASPS] This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network.

I'm your host, Greg Sargent. [GASPS] Donald Trump's numbers on the economy have taken another big dive.

“A Quinnipiac poll finds him at a record low,”

and a CNN analysis finds him in much, much worse shape on the issue than in 2018. But Trump has an answer. He's just promised to send $5,000 to every American if Republicans hold Congress. The idea is so ludicrous that even Fox News figures are gently mocking it. Meanwhile, Trump let out a rambling aside about his awful polls

that was oddly revealing about the "Hopium" his team is feeding him. All of which raises a question.

Have Trump's magical reality-bending power is finally run out.

We're breaking it all down with political scientists Tom Schaller, who has a good piece for the public-noticed sub-stack on Trump's ongoing inflation catastrophe. Tom, good to have you on. Good to be very, Greg. So let's just start with Trump's announcement that it'll send $5,000 to all Americans

if Republicans hold the House and Senate as many people quickly pointed out. Trump has promised to send people money over and over again. His contempt for his voters here is just boundless. Tom, you're quick reaction to all that? Well, he won't deliver on it, and I think we all know that.

We didn't get a rebate for the tariffs that we paid. The corporations did, so in effect his tariffs, one of the things I talked about in the new piece, were a retail sales tax on Americans that was paid initially by corporations, but they're getting made whole, and of course they're not going to give any of the money back. So you can count on that $5,000, like you can count on getting your tariff money back.

That's my gut reaction. You know, the funny thing about this is that highlights another layer of contempt for Americans that Trump shows here, he's saying that he'll be able to send $5,000 to all Americans because the tariff revenue has been so big, which he casts as money that we're getting from other countries.

So he's basically saying all this money that we're getting from other countries will send it to Americans.

“But of course, the truth is literally the exact opposite.”

The tariffs are being paid by Americans, and nothing will be sent back to them. Let's talk about some of this polling. The new Quinnipiac poll has Trump's approval rating down at 33%. On the economy, it's 32%. His lowest ever in Quinnipiac polling. On the war with Iran, he's at 29%, and on trade with Canada, he's at 28%. Extraordinarily terrible numbers. You wrote in your piece that all of Trump's policies are conspiring to push up prices and hurt the economy.

I think this polling shows that voters really understand the connection here between all these things. You're thoughts on all that? You have more faith in the voter than I do. Let me just start by saying that. And I'm a political scientist, and I'm sure I'll take some crap for saying this, but I don't have a lot of faith in voters. So if voters had a substantial knowledge of how the economy works, Greg, they would have known

during the campaign that two of the three policies that I talked about in the public notice piece, not the Iran war, because obviously that hadn't happened yet. But Trump ran on immigration reform and taking all the immigrant labor out of the country, and of course he ran on tariffs. And if you thought about those two policies for a moment, one is essentially an inflationary policy on domestic production, because it raises labor costs when you eliminate some of the most efficient and lower paid workers.

And the second, of course, tariffs, as we already discussed, is just a tax retail tax on imports. And so Trump was campaigning to end inflation on two inflationary policies. It'd be like if you and I were picked by our local town to sit on a panel to pick the new fire chief, and we interviewed a guy, and he was kind of brosk, and he didn't have good manners, but he had two really great ideas when he explained to us his philosophy of putting out fire.

One is he shows up with a giant flip, a truck of dried hay, and he dumps not on top. And then if that doesn't work, he brings a tanker of carousine and sprays that on because we know that liquids, doubts, fires.

And then halfway through his term, now I'm analyzing to the Iran war, he said, "Well, no, what you really do to put out a fire?"

“If you throw a bunch of fire crackers in there, because that disseminates the fire and that puts it out.”

So this is the person that Americans hired to fix the economy, even though he can't do basic percentages, no less understand global macroeconomic politics. It's a fair point. I would add, though, that when actual conditions force people's minds to concentrate a little, they actually do, I do take it as heartening that he's in the 20s on his trade war with Canada,

and in the 20s on the Iran war, put it this way. We've never had a situation I don't think where the direct connection between policy and outcome on the economy,

which is something that presidents often don't really have a lot of control over, has been so clear. And so for him to be polling in the 20s on tariffs and trade, when that was one of his quote-unquote strengths, I take that as a sign that maybe voters are starting to see what's going on here. Well, I mean, I do think voters rightly or wrongly they have these cues that they take. Obviously the gas prices, one of them, and grocery prices and housing prices are another.

And as I showed in the piece, because so much of the construction industry, residential or commercial is staffed by immigrant labor, you're going to raise the cost of housing prices to buy house, and then of course, when the housing prices go up, then the landlords can charge more in the rent because of the market situation. And then, of course, the groceries, right, almost every meal you eat, whether you eat it at a restaurant, whether you eat it at home is made with fruits and vegetables and other prototypes,

whether fresh or process that are picked, planted, picked and delivered by immigrant labor. So, you know, Trump's policies are very inflationary. My point is not that people can't figure out that they're paying more for a pound of beef or a gallon of gas. My point is they should have figured this out during the election. That's all I'm saying.

Well, speaking of the situation here, CNN's Harry Anton made an astounding observation. He looked at Reuters and CNN polling and concluded the Trump is now 52 points underwater with independence on the economy. Back in 2018, the last midterm, he was a plus 10 with that demographic. So, as end to notes, independence have swung 62 points against him on the economy. Tom, I keep saying this, but Trump's collapse within dependence is an undercover story.

We haven't seen anything quite like this. Independence really matter in midterm. What do you make of all that?

Well, first of all, I'm shocked.

I didn't realize it was that bad. I didn't realize it was that good for him in 2018, which was a bad cycle for Republicans. So, Trump was plus 10 with independence and they still took a shell acting in 2018.

“Boy, are they really in trouble here in 2026, eight years later?”

So, yeah, that is a shocking number minus 52, even without the baseline of plus 10. But it's doubly shocking that I'm actually, I was surprised. I thought you were going to say it was minus 20, or minus 15 back in 28 to beat. But to have been plus 10 and still Republicans took serious losses in 2018. Yeah, I'm very, very surprised.

And yeah, people are upset because Trump promised to fix the economy and lower inflation and lower the price of your energy bill. And of course, he promised that the Gaza is real war. And, you know, Russian Ukraine war, and he hasn't delivered on any of that stuff. And maybe people are starting to realize that he's high on promises and low on delivery.

“Well, I think you actually put your finger on an important point and underlying factor to all this.”

That's really worth drawing out a little bit, which is that during Trump's first term,

he really did remain above water on the economy. That's the big difference between then and now. The fundamental thing here is that during the first term, Trump didn't actually get his way on a lot of these policies to nearly the same degree that he has in the second term. The first time he was in positive territory on the economy, now he's an absolutely abysmal territory.

What do you think of all that? Well, I think that's true that the pure effect of his policies were significantly muted because he at least had some adults in the room instead of a cabinet full of sick of fans. But I think the other difference you cannot overlook is that despite at one point on what was then called Twitter, Trump claiming that the unemployment rate under Obama was 42% when it was literally a tenth of that, it was about 4.5%.

Trump inherited a smoking hot economy in 2017, in January 2017 when he first agonized,

whereas the economy was in much worse shape when he came into office in January 2025 following post-COVID inflation.

“But Americans, they fairly are unfairly, they give extraordinary credits of presence when the economy is good,”

whether they deserve it or not. And sometimes they get one deserved blame when the economy is bad.

So Trump is being sort of penalized for the very thing he benefited from in the first term.

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I trust that one part of the world is the whole world that is recovering from post-COVID shock and post-COVID trauma. The economist described the American recovery as the envy of the world. In a sense, while the comparison that you're making holds, it's still also true that he twice inherited a good situation. And both times he flushed it down the toilet. The first time he flushed the economy down the toilet by screwing up the COVID handling and to catastrophic degree, right, like hundreds of thousands of deaths probably needless.

And then the second time he's just flushed it away with policies, with immigration policy, with tariff policy, with war.

He's just an absolute calamity always. Everything he touches dies as the great man said.

And so what do you think of all that Tom? I mean, this is a guy who just keeps fucking everything up.

“And I'm hoping, finally, the world is catching up with him, is that possible?”

Yeah, I think the world is catching up with him, and I think the world is turning it shoulder to us. I'm in Canada right now, in fact, and Canadians have had it with Trump. And, you know, they are essentially a European ally here on the North American continent to the European, to the NATO alliance. And increasingly, our behaving like Europeans, which is finding other trade partners around the globe, is that it's trading with us. And that's going to affect our long-term important export ability.

And Trump is really destroying things in a way that where we not the world's largest economy and most powerful military,

the kind of decisions that we've seen him make. I know we're talking about this with the Defense Department and Pete Hegsett. You know, other countries wouldn't be able to survive those kind of mistakes. Other economies might collapse with the leadership of Trump. And so, in a weird way, Trump is benefiting from the fact that the United States is such a powerful and rich country.

That you can screw things up at the margin to great pain for many Americans and many people who aren't Americans economically. And the country isn't going to fall. Well, anyway, his cratering numbers on the economy are the context for his promise to send $5,000 to every American or Republicans' whole Congress. Fox News figures were practically mocking this. First, listen to this Fox anchor called Bullshit on it.

We should note, though, it is not the first time he has promised a cash payment like this.

So far, have not materialized. Now, listen to Fox's Brett Bayer, who's practically snickering while he makes these points. But if your Republicans win the house, $5,000 for every adult citizen, so you do the quick math. That's about $1.3 trillion. I can hear the critics' heads exploded. They're saying, "Out loud, I guarantee you.

President is bribing voters to vote for Republicans to take over the house. And then he's bankrupting the country because the deficit and debt is huge. And inflation would come back if this comes into play."

And finally, here's Laura Ingraham asking a very good question about the idea.

“I just give the money now. If you have the money, why don't you come down?”

Because the Democrats can't do it because with them it's negative growth, with us it's so positive. So Ingraham says, "Why don't you just give people the money now?" It's a good question, and Trump has absolutely no answer to this. For Fox News, that's pretty harsh stuff, isn't it, Tom? Yeah, if you're going to bribe people, you want the money up front.

Of course, it's hard to buy votes anyway. It's just joking my students and probably 100. If anybody wants to pay me for my votes, since it's a secret ballot, I'll take as little as 50 cents because you can't enforce the bribe, right? So if voters want to ask for $5,000 at the ante for their votes,

I'd take $5,000 from Trump, especially if you wrote it from the Trump business organization. And send me a check. I'll promise to vote for Republicans from the top of the bottom of the ballot, just send me to $5,000, wire to my bank account, I promise. And I'll keep that promise much like a Donald Trump has kept so many of his promises.

“So the ludicrousness of the $5,000 promise is really a desperate effort to mask his terrible polling situation.”

And in fact, he actually unleashed a bizarre rambling aside about his awful polling. Listen to this.

We had one of the greatest economies in history in my first term.

This is blowing it away. But then I'll see a poll and then say Trump is at 44% on the economy. How can it be at 44? We have more people working now than ever before. And I'm at 44%, no, no.

At 30 points, maybe I should be at 100% on the economy. But you're going to see it in a short period of time. And the prices are all coming down. John McLaughlin, the great pollster, he's one of the greats. Just told me that if you end today, nobody could come close to you.

Nobody would be within 20 points. I believe that's right. Two things.

First, he says the terrible polling on the economy can't possibly be real.

And second, he says his pollster, John McLaughlin, is telling him that he'd defeat any challengers by huge margins today. Pure horseshit. But he's an absolutely terrible shape just about any generic Democrat would beat him pretty handling.

But the translation here is that his pollster is feeding him pure nonsense to try to sugarcoat. The terrible news about the midterms that is showing up in the polling. Your thoughts on all that, Tom? Yeah, I mean, there's only two possibilities here. One is that Trump is insane and he believes this stuff because he's being, you know, as you said,

force fed bogus narratives by a staff that's too afraid to tell him the truth. That could very well be the case. The other is that Trump knows the truth. And I guess strategically is in denial about it. And like almost everything else in his career, he just thinks he can talk his way through it.

And of course, as he points out, he doesn't have to stand for elections. So there's nothing to talk through for him, at least, at this point. He can make up any lies and inflate his poll numbers, just like he inflates everything else. This isn't a success even when it's a failure.

But that doesn't change the underlying fundamentals. And it doesn't change as you pointed out these horrible poll numbers, which his fellow Republicans are going to have to run on in eight weeks here.

“Well, just to wrap this up, what's your sense of the fundamentals now?”

Do you think these polls are pretty much capturing how bad it is for Republicans? The Quinnipiac poll I mentioned earlier has Democrats plus 11 in the House Cheneric ballot matchup. I really doubt it's that high right now. But another poll had it at plus 11 recently.

And so I'm wondering if those are leading indicators that the Democratic lead is starting to expand now, because the polling averages have had it at around six, right, or seven. And so I think maybe the lead might be expanding now. What's your sense of it? Yeah.

If the two recent polls even if they're slightly outliers or they're off by a couple percentage points, they could pull the sum of the averages from plus six to plus seven plus eight plus nine.

And then that's going to be a slaughtering.

“And it'll be interesting to see if some Republicans where they've sliced it a little too thin”

with their strategic jerrymandering and are created some 54, 46 districts. And so forth, that could be enough to tip a district that they sliced it a little too close in order to maximize the number of Republican leading seats in a particular state. And some incumbent makes a mistake is underfunded or just a voter anger or those independent show up. And suddenly Republicans who thought they were safe lose their seats.

And then I think finally you'll have an intra party revolve because, you know,

Republican members of Congress are the most part of back Trump as a matter of self survival. They're petrified of Maga voters. They know that they can't win without them, but they might come finally to the realization that they can lose with them and or with only them. And so, you know, if we start to see some people that the Charlie Cooks or the World didn't have

as, you know, even leaning Republican or a solid Republican seats fall, then there will be recriminations, I believe.

“Well, just to underscore that point, let's remember that Trump is the one who forced Republicans to enter”

into this mid decade, Jerry Mandarin's free. It would be really a great dose of poetic justice. If the result of that was to get Republicans to move safe seats into somewhat less safe territory. And then because Trump is such a catastrophe, all of a sudden the wave sweeps those seats away. That would be really something wouldn't at all.

You know, it's also funny about this, is that, and actually give Donald Trump credit for this. He wants his name to be metaphorically on the ballot even though he's not standing for a few election in the midterm. And he said that in Dallas, like, "Vote is if I'm on the ballot."

“So maybe that answers our earlier question about whether he knows that they're really bad and he's lying about it.”

That's probably not true. He probably really believes he's super popular in the love by the American people. So, you know, he's smoking his own supply. So the speaker and his staff won't give him the hard news, which is he's extraordinarily unpopular, frankly hated. And, you know, give him credit for the guts of it because if they get slaughtered in the midterms, he can't say it's not my fault.

He can't say, "Well, I wasn't on the ballot," he said, "Vote is if I'm on the ballot." So he's going to own the election results in a way that he normally doesn't take responsibility for anything. You know, I'm sure after the election he'll blame. He'll say, "We had bad candidates, and they read ban campaigns, and it's not my fault." We know he's in denial about people he's endorsed who've lost primaries and is suing the media for telling the truth about his endorsement records.

So, you know, I actually never give the guy credit, but give him credit for like owning his numbers and saying, "Make me the central disc focus point for your vote this November."

So, I say, "Go for it, America." I agree 100% Tom Schalller, thanks so much for coming on now, and always good to talk to you. Great to be your cheers. Thank you all for your support. And thank you all for your support.

And thank you all for your support. And thank you all for your support. Thank you all for your support.