This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the ...
I'm your host, Greg Sargent.
“All Trump's advisors have figured out why his approval ratings are in the toilet.”
The problem is that voters just aren't aware of how stupidists all his accomplishments
have truly been, and reportedly this is what they're privately telling him in discussions about the midterms. Oddly, this comes amid new and clear indications that Republicans are panicking about their inability to explain his disastrous rule to voters and amid new polling that really underscores their peril.
Here's the upshot. No one around Trump is allowed to tell him the truth, and if this helps take down the GOP in the midterms, it'll be a real dose of poetic justice. We're working through it all with Mona Sharon, a writer for the Bull Work, who's been pointing out that Republicans really don't want him anywhere near the midterms.
Mona, nice to have you back on. Hi, Greg.
Always fun to be with you, and poetic justice is the best justice.
Yes, and, you know, it's looking good right now. Let's hope so. So these new leaks to the Atlantic are really something. Trump's advisors are privately telling him all the bad poll numbers, reflect the fact that voters still don't know about his accomplishments.
As examples, advisors cite new stock market highs, declines and fentanyl deaths, the closed southern border and the increase in domestic manufacturing production, Mona, that's funny. I mean, maybe the border is a fair one, but stock market highs and manufacturing jobs have declined.
You're reaction to all this?
Yeah, it was just going to mention that. So a little slight of hand there.
“The fact is that manufacturing output is up, but manufacturing employment has lagged.”
It's for a while, it was in steep decline, now it's picked up a little bit, but it's nothing like a boom, and that's because this has been going on for decades, where we've been getting more and more automated ways of manufacturing things, that's just a fact of life. And Trump sold people on a fairytale of returning the kind of manufacturing jobs that were prevalent in the 1950s and 1960s and that world is gone, but so yeah, they're trying to
say, you know, this reminds me of like a medieval king, you know, who's a mad king, and all the courteers are forced to sort of tiptoe around, and nobody can ever say the truth, which is the king is mad. So they tried to playkate him, and they say, yes, yes, your majesty, it's true. The reason that the polls are looking the way they are is because people just aren't
aware of all the wonderful things you've done, and the stock market, I mean, this is Mr. populism, right, Mr. I'm for the working guy, and so he expects them to be thrilled about stock market gains, no, I don't think so. Yeah, and there are a couple other elements to the slight of hand, as you put it, that I'd like to quickly highlight, they're telling him that the manufacturing renaissance is happening.
It isn't the amount of extraordinary upheaval that he's inflicted on the country, and really on global trade to produce these tiny little gains which aren't even gains is really incredible, right? And then the other thing is it's striking that they cite the closed southern border, he is deeply, deeply unpopular on the broader issue of immigration right now.
In fact, it's thrown away his best issue, and so none of this adds up to a real argument in any sense.
“Both parties, I think, have a tendency to misread the American public and overread their”
mandate. People did not like chaos at the southern border as they perceived it under the Biden administration, and they wanted a crackdown on border crossings. They did not want what the Republicans have delivered, which is a kind of reign of terror, and grabbing grandmothers out of their homes who've lived here for 30 years and have no
criminal record at all, etc., and so they have so overdone it that there's been a backlash
Against it.
And as an electoral matter, Greg, this could be highly significant.
You think about the number of Hispanic men who voted for Trump in 2024, for example. If the polls are right, those voters are gone. The numbers really do show that Trump is absolutely bleeding Hispanic men. I want to move on to the Atlantic's other thing that they reported here, which is that Trump's answer to this situation is to order Republicans to focus more on him.
He's ordered up TV ads about his record that will apparently be used in these House and Senate contests. And as far as I can tell, this isn't really idle chit chat, there's a big looming question about how Trump's super PAC will spend the hundreds of millions of dollars it's holding, how it will spend that money on the midterms if it will spend it.
“This might be the answer, more a hegeography of Trump, Mona, do you think Republicans want that?”
So this is just what endangered Republicans want to hear, right, that the, that yes, Trump is going to dig into his huge war chest, and he's going to produce ads that are all about Trump and how great he is. And so when they are trying their damnedest to get away from this being a referendum on Trump, because that's their only hope is if it's about other things, about how crazy
the Democrats are, about communism, about something else, Trump is saying, no, no, it should be all about me, where you have his just Titanic ego being a ball in chain for the, for the Republican Party. It absolutely is. And we have a bunch of new data that really underscores that point.
It's from some different directions, but it adds up to a striking picture, a new market
poll of Wisconsin finds as approval at a net negative 19 points that's 40 to 59 percent
is worst yet in market polling, 60 percent say his policies boost inflation, 70 percent say the war is not worth the cost. That's in a state Trump won, right in the heart of the Russ belt. And the Russ belt is where a lot of these big races will be decided. Meanwhile, Mona, there's another poll, a national poll.
This one from strengthened numbers. It finds Trump at 37 percent approval to 60 percent disapproving. That's absolutely dismal on prices. He's at a record negative 48 points underwater. And for the first time, he's also underwater, get this unborder security.
“Remember how his advisors cited that as a positive?”
He's actually underwater, unborder security. And that last one I take as an indicator of across the board collapse, like deep collapse in his public standing. What do you make of all these findings?
Yes, 100 percent, it is a real reckoning for Trump.
It is worth remembering that in 2018, when he faces first midterm elections, he was at close to 50 percent popularity, 49 something like that. So to be down in the 30s is really devastating. And you know, people are willing, sometimes too willing to give presidents a pass, like for example, voters didn't hold Trump responsible for the bad economy when COVID hit.
Because they felt, well, it was an exogenous event.
“He didn't cause it, you know, it's not his fault.”
So, and the economy was great up until then, so we're going to give him a pass. But this time, everybody is aware that he made the decision to impose those tariffs, that it was his choice, he made the decision to launch a war that he was completely unprepared for and did not fight in any way that was likely to succeed. And without getting the approval of the American people in the Congress, et cetera, and
that it is driven up the cost of gas and fertilizer and many other things, it is obvious and attributable to his own decisions. He cannot say it's an exogenous event, he can't blame Biden though, in that same Atlantic PC, you were quoting, they do several times talk about how this is Biden's fault, but that doesn't fly, it's 2026. If you're enjoying this episode and want to get even more out of the DSR network, you
need to check out our sub-stack. The DSR network sub-stack is the absolute best way to follow deep state radio, the DSR daily, where it's matter, need to know, sila consciousness, AI, energy and climate, and
The daily blast.
Sign up to get notified every time a new episode drops and stay up to date on the latest
news and expert analysis. Right now, we're offering 20% off of a DSR network membership. Paid members get an ad-free listening experience, select episodes two days early, 50% off of David's need to know sub-stack and more. To get your 20% off, go to DSR network.substack.com/awgist26.
That's DSR network.substack.com/awgist26. Well, the strength and numbers poll has something else of interest here. Democrats are leading the GOP on a number of specific economic metrics. They're plus nine on prices, plus seven on jobs, this is Democrats leading Republicans, plus seven on trade, which is obviously in the news now, and plus 22 on healthcare.
Mona, a big pondit narrative has been that, okay, Trump's very unpopular, but Democrats have a huge brand problem, which could offset it, and I don't dispute that Democrats have a brand problem. I think that's a real thing, but for them to be leading the GOP by all these economic metrics is significant, highly so I think, given the Republican Party's long-time advantage
on economic issues, and I think it goes right back to what you just said, which is that the voters can see very clearly with uncommon clarity, unusual levels of clarity, that Donald Trump is wrecking their economic hopes and economic position, and so forth. And so they're directly linking the Republican Party to Trump, and I don't know to what extent they're hearing Democrats are not.
My general sense is that Trump's horrific unpopularity is making it possible for Dems
to be heard by voters who might otherwise not hear Democrats, but basically Trump is the
reason that the Republican Party is now behind the Democratic Party on economic issues. And that's an extraordinary turn of events, I think.
“It is, mid-terms are always a referendum on the president, and so that's what the voters”
are going to focus on, are they happy or not happy with the tenure and office of the president? And, you know, they are, they are saying no, they're extremely unhappy, therefore the other guy, and the other guy are the Democrats, the Democrats are benefiting from that. I, I've made no secret of the fact that I'm in the camp that believes that the Democratic Party should be, should be in the center as much as possible, and should keep a huge
tent and bring in people who are disaffected and who, for whatever reason in recent years have been, who have been abandoning the Democratic Party, I think they should be sort of moderate in their policy approach, but incredibly fierce in their rhetorical approach. So I think that's what voters want. They want somebody who will fight this, and who will show real passion about what Trump
is doing to the country, but who doesn't say that they want to abolish the police and, you know, end the Senate and do a lot of the things that are on the DSA's website, you know? Yeah, well, the DSA is actually giving Democrats a very big opportunity to say that they're not for those things.
Well, and that's a really interesting way of putting it. I hope they take them up on that. Yeah, well, I just think that what we're looking at here is that Democrats are suddenly able
“to reach voters who I think were not within their reach before, and this seems like an”
essential thing. A lot of punts pointed this out, but what's happening with independence
is quite extraordinary right now. Trump's numbers within dependence are just so unbelievably awful that you can't even believe it when you look at them, but one poll after another is just showing that he's just absolutely cratered with the middle of the country. And I think a lot of those voters are now tuned into some of these Democratic candidates. And by the way, there are a lot of good Democratic candidates out there.
Oh, there are, right? And that's, you know, this, that's, it has very heavy to 2018 vibes. And that sense, I think, you've got a lot of good Senate candidates, and you've got a lot of good candidates in these very difficult house races and places like Iowa, Wisconsin. And governors.
Yes, good, gubernatorial candidates as well. I, it's my sense that they can now speak to voters who wouldn't have listened before. And there's real transformative potential there. I hope, what do you think? I do.
I agree.
“I mean, I think that's what you're seeing, for example, in a place like Texas.”
Texas. Like, you know, that was just out of the question, not even remotely in the realm of possibility
A year ago, right?
And now, James Telerico is, you know, is doing incredibly well.
And I don't know if he'll win, but the fact that we don't know is amazing.
In Texas. So yes, I do think that the failure of Trump and one more thing though to say, you were saying, you know, that you look at these numbers and you almost can't believe how bad they are for Trump.
“And part of me is nodding along the other part of me is saying, why did he take this?”
Why did he take so long for people to finally see the reality of how awful he is? I don't know, but thankfully they are seeing it now. Yeah. That's for sure.
And there are new signs as well that Republicans are panicking.
Politico reports that some of this is spurred by his new trade war with Canada and his plan to flood the country with foreign beef to bring down beef prices. Just going to read some quotes, GOP rep Tim Birch should have Tennessee told Politico that the beef flooding is going to hurt small farmers and ranchers added, quote, I think it could hurt us at the polls, quote, meanwhile, you've got two Republican Senate candidates,
Maine incumbent Susan Collins and John Sanunu who's running in New Hampshire. They're criticizing Trump's trade war with Canada, West Virginia Senator Jim Justice said, quote, folks out there are hurting, mode of the trade war is really going to hit these Senate races in some of these very big states, how do we square all of this with Trump's
“advisors telling him that the real problem is no one knows how great Trump is?”
So look, you know, part of this is just what happens to many presidents when, you know, they become isolated and they live in a bubble, arguably it happened to Biden. Biden was, you know, out there saying people don't know all the great things I've done, look at all the legislation we passed, et cetera, et cetera. On the other hand, this is a particularly pathological kind of narcissism that Trump has
and he has only hired in the second term, the kinds of people who will be yes men and
toties and lackeys and so he has made a kind of impenetrable bubble around himself. You know, he used to spend in the first term, he spent a lot of time on TV, watching TV and watching MSNBC at the time and constantly, you know, responding to criticism of him. And in every speech, you could tell he'd been listening to his critics because he would say, they say, blah blah blah, you know, or I'm not supposed to say this because they say, you know,
that sort of little thing. But, you know, he's not doing that now. He is not even responding because he has sealed himself off and he has surrounded himself with people who will facilitate that. I don't want to go over the whole Natalie Harp thing again, but, you know, her job was the human printer, the person who would simply deliver good news and that is a fatal weakness for it would be autocrat because he loses touch with where the people are.
You know, the Natalie Harp parallel is interesting, maybe the fact that Trump's advisors are essentially acting as a bunch of Natalie Harp's internally, it's the Natalie Harp political strategy at work really, isn't it? So about the trade war with Canada, I still think that this is going to be a much bigger factor than people are noticing. Throughout the Midwest, you've got already a lot of pain from Trump's tariffs and you've got a lot of races in these regions that are going to
decide this thing. And now you've just got Trump going out there saying, "Fuck you, Canada, I'm going to take Lake Ontario. There's not even a centilla of any sense that he thinks he needs to talk to voters about how they might be experiencing what's happening." And this trade war is going to hurt people, Republicans themselves are saying it, yet he's just off in the bubble you're talking about, thinking to himself that if I tweet a visual about Lake Ontario becoming Lake America,
“all of a sudden, that'll just make things politically right. What do you make of all that?”
Welcome to the world of cartoons, which is where we live now. I mean, it is a cartoon. Oh, you're going to impose tariffs. You're going to respond with tariffs to my tariffs? Well, in that case, I'm going to, I'll show you, I'm going to rename Lake Ontario. That'll teach you. I mean,
It is so juvenile and so dumb and embarrassing.
I feel so terrible about what this country is doing to Canada. Our great friend and neighbor who,
“you know, we love and it isn't us. It's just this moron in the White House who's doing this,”
but I'm very, very sorry. It is going to hurt the Canadians more than it hurts us, but that doesn't
mean it's not going to hurt us. It's going to hurt us a lot, which is why you have all of these
“Republicans, even Republicans, criticizing the trade war. And we have very important races in Maine”
and in Michigan and in Ohio and places that are right on the border that are going to be very directly impacted. We'll all be impacted, but it is, it is going to hurt people. And once again, it is just
“he can't escape responsibility, right? I mean, it's just like we were talking about with the”
Iran war and with the earlier tariffs. This is going to be, this lands directly in his lap. It's not anybody else's fault. He can't blame Biden. He can't blame a virus. He did this. He's doing this. And people will know when their toilet paper becomes, you know, unaffordable and other things. That is, by the way, one of the things on the list. Apparently, we get our toilet paper from Canada. But, but yeah, so it's going to be very significant politically in just a few weeks.
I agree. Mona Sharon, thanks so much for coming on with us. Really great to talk to you as always.
Likewise, thanks Greg.
