The Daily Blast: Trump’s Rage Boils Over at Journos as Inflation Data Takes Brutal Turn

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He erupted at a reporter for asking a reasonable question about prices, see that another reporter over his ballroom, and made an admission about ordinary Americans economic pain that was incredibly self-damaging. Yet we're in a split-screen moment. Trump's inability to resolve the Iran fiasco means his travels with inflation will likely keep getting worse. But we're also seeing GOP chances in the midterms rebound significantly due to redistricting. So we're working through all of this with democratic strad of just Simon Rosenberg,

who's been arguing for months that Trump's political problems on the economy predate the Iran war and won't be fixed if the war ends.

Simon, always good to have you on.

Greg, it's always great to be with you. So we just learned that consumer prices spiked big-time last month much of it driven by energy prices rising due to Trump's war. The consumer price indexes up 3.8% and April relative to last year. That's up from 2.4% before the war. But even if you take out volatile food and energy costs, prices still rose by the same amount.

Simon, you're quick reaction to all that news? Yeah, I mean, look, the Trump's tariffs and his broader economic strategy had already caused the economy to slow job growth to slow inflation to reignite prior to the war. And the more data that we've gotten, the more incredible, it's clear he's took an extraordinary risk by engaging in this war, given that things were already heading in the wrong direction of the economy, which we also saw in his polling data. And now we've had a couple months of post war data and Trump's polling numbers are collapsing even further.

His economic ratings are going down. We're the lowest consumer confidence recorded in 65 years. And the inflation numbers are ugly. And so it's pushing him and his body further and further away from the electorate. Absolutely.

And Trump knows he's in trouble on all this. He was asked about all that by a reporter and he lost it. Listen. Mr. President, you promised to bring inflation down. It is now at his highest level in three years.

Are your policies not working? What's happening? He's working incredibly. If you go back to just before the war for the last three months, inflation was at 1.7%. Now, we had a choice.

Let these lunatics have a nuclear weapon.

“If you want to do that, then you're a stupid person and you happen to be.”

I mean, I know you very well. So Simon, I was unable to determine who this quote unquote stupid reporter is. But what's funny here is his anger over being asked whether policies are to blame his policies. You could not ask for a clearer example of a president actually being to blame.

For economic conditions, it's never this clear.

Tariffs, immigration, the war, the connection is absolutely inarguable. Your thoughts on that? Costs are up because of him and I think the reason this is hurt him so much in the polls is that he promised otherwise. He promised to lowers everybody's prices and costs and to make lives better for everybody. And he's done the exact opposite.

“And I think that that's part of the reason that he's paying in his party or paying such a heavy price right now in polling.”

In the economic terms, he's done all these things including cutting healthcare that are hurt working people. And he gave himself a massive tax cut. And if you look at the tariffs with the tariffs are is clearly a part of a strategy to shift the tax burden in the United States from wealthy people to working people. And so it's literally the case that he's done a series of things that have done enormous harm to working people, farmers, small business people, working people. And done a whole series of things to enrich himself and other wealthy people in America. It's about as clear cut as you can get, Greg.

Well, look, keep in a democratic strategy just for a long time and four democratic strategies like yourself.

He's a billionaire, but he just comes across to a whole lot of people out there, especially low information voters, as some combination of an economic populist.

As someone who's not like other Republicans on the economy, he very consciously had distance himself from other Republicans on the economy in 2016 sort of did the same again in 2024. So that plus the kind of deep cultural penetration of the image of Trump as this can do guy who snaps his fingers and makes things happen. He's never been easily pilloried as a plutocrat, but now it sort of seems like precisely because of that we all have our a tough time getting our heads around the idea that maybe Donald Trump is perceived as out of touch on the economy.

And he is perceived that way.

Oh, yeah, I mean, and I think your analysis is correct. I mean, in the 2020 election, despite the fact the economy was, you know, in the toilet when Trump ran for the election, Trump beat Biden with voters who said the economy was the number one issue by 81 to 18. And he, and he also beat Biden by more than 10 points in the question, who would be better for the economy, Biden won the election because of COVID. But even though he had crashed the economy, his economic number stayed unbelievably high in the 2020 elections.

“And so, yes, you're right, and I think in 2024, what happened, that part of what gave that extra veneer of this idea of that if you want to make more money, you go a Trump, which I think was very important particularly in the Hispanic community.”

And with younger voters who had just been through COVID and were worried about their economic lives. He also had Elon Musk and the tech pros, right, to sort of give that additional impromotor of the people that were creating wealth and prosperity in America who were now on his side.

And it was a very powerful kind of branding thing that he did.

It's all unravel now. And you're seeing this gradually, what happened is about, let's say a month ago or six weeks ago, you started seeing polling where Democrats were more trusted on the economy, more trusted on inflation, you know, on fighting for working people. And now in CNN, Democrats had significant leads, you know, in all those measures, as opposed to just being up by a couple points, I don't know the trajectory of this, but I think we cannot underestimate the importance of what's happening with inflation right now.

It is, it is spiking at extraordinary levels. And the reason why it's breaking into Republican Party circles is that gas prices really matter for Republican voters, given that they live in that more rural areas, they drive bigger cars. And so now this is crashing deeply into the mega world and it's breaking through the bubble.

“And that's why your seeing his numbers come down even further.”

I want to get to the question of Democrats in the economy in a bit, but first let's listen to more of Trump, a reporter asked him to what degree Americans financial situation shapes as thinking about Iran, listen. If you're negotiating with Iran, Mr. President, what extent are Americans financial situations motivating you to make it deal? Not even a little bit. The only thing that matters when I'm talking about Iran, they can't have a nuclear weapon. I don't think about American financial situation. I don't think about anybody. I think about one thing. We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That's all.

This is going to end up in a lot of Democratic ads. Note the claim that he doesn't think about Americans financial situation even a little bit. Simon, this is somebody who is absolutely convinced that he and Republicans are politically untouchable in the economy. Someone who thinks is ability to control what Americans think of him and the GOP is absolute. And I think there's a real serious hubris at work here, kind of rooted in what we were just talking about, which is that for years for cycle after cycle, he was untouchable on the economy.

And he still thinks he is. Well, and they also have said that they think that gas, the war is just going to end magically, just the way that COVID ended. He kept saying, COVID is going to end one day.

“The war is just going to end and things are going to snap back to the way they were. And that's, I think that is the wide belief in the Republican Party now that this is a temporary blip.”

And yeah, what we're seeing in the inflation data and this in this report is that remember energy inflation is different than food inflation or different than other inflation, because it affects anything that is transported also goes up in price. And so it's, it's like a multiplier through the economy. It's not just a singular pillar in inflation. And you're starting to see that impact, for example, on food prices. Trump is in a real, the Republicans in Trump, I think are in a place of extraordinary denial and magical thinking about the depth of the whole that he's digging for them right now because of the war.

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The economic conditions in our country, a bismal, and yet the CNN poll has the generic

house ballot matchup at Dems up only three points. Simon, that could be wrong. The polling averages have Dems leading by five points or six points. But still, how do you square those findings? Where are you on the claim that we keep hearing?

“Dems are underperforming in the generic ballot given Trump's extraordinary unpopularity?”

I think the generic ballot has been all over the place. I mean, to be fair. I mean, there were three polls taken in the last few weeks that have the generic ballot up at high-single digits and double digits for the Democrats. It's been more choppy and bouncy than I remember in recent election cycles.

But certainly, look, there's two in a potentially wave election, which we may be in. There's two different dynamics, right? I mean, you can win an election just on them being sick of the party in power and have the election that you want to have and we've been having test cases around the election and all these special elections and other elections over the last 16 months and things have

been going very well for the Democrats. But obviously, it would be better if we also had a short, clear agenda about what we would do when we got back into power.

“And I think that agenda is available to us, things like we would get rid of the tariffs,”

which would lower your prices, right? We would restore some of the health care cuts so you can afford health care again. These are not big, complicated things that we can run on that are necessary things for us to do. And my hope is that the House and Senate Democrats come together around a simple agenda

of the things that we'll do when we get back into power. As we did in the 20, for example, in the 2006 midterm, we had six for '06, was the plan that Pelosi put out, which were the six things that the Democrats committed to do. There's different schools of thought in the family about this, but I'm in the camp that I think it would be smart for us to put out a simple, clear agenda about how we're going

to make people lives better and then fight like hell when we're empowered to implement it.

You just brought up the tariffs and Democrats and I want to hone in on that for a second.

This is something you've talked about as well. Obviously health care, Democrats feel really comfortable running on. We all almost joke about it all the time at this point, but tariffs, less so, you do see some Democrats attack the tariffs and Democrats have been pretty good in some of these congressional votes.

And yet you don't hear that many Democratic candidates in tough races and tough house districts or tough states, really going hard at the tariffs, which is just mystifying to me. Here's my fear about that, Simon. I fear that a lot of these Democrats see these tariffs as somehow economic populist and therefore a little bit untouchable, that these Democrats fear that Trump is speaking to an

authentic sentiment in the electorate that's pro-tariff and anti-aroliances and anti-globalization

The tariffs are a fucking disaster. They call this to the inflation, and Democrats shouldn't be afraid of saying that. You're thoughts on that and am I right or wrong? You know, it's like most of the times when I join you, you raise interesting and complicated things.

I do think I've been a little surprised that Democrats have put a lot more energy into the health care discussion than tariffs and inflation, particularly given what Trump promised and particularly given that we know that inflation hurt Biden in 2024. But I will say that I've interviewed most of the Battleground State House and Senate candidates in the last couple of months, and the first thing that comes out of their mouths is tariffs

and higher prices, and I want to just make sure your listeners are aware, and in these

races, here's what they're working with as candidates, they're working all these incumbent

Republicans, voted for the tariffs and higher prices and challenges for small businesses and farmers. They voted for the war, which further increased gas prices and other prices. They voted for the health care cuts, which has every day that we get closer to the election those cuts are going to be more biting in every one of these districts.

They all voted to fund ice at unprecedented levels without any reforms, and they voted to cut taxes in the wealthiest people while raising them for middle-class people. I've been doing this a long time, 34 years, full time, and I don't know that we've ever had so much to work with, and because to your point, Greg, I don't know that we've ever seen a party, so a validly plutocratic and unconcerned with a welfare of regular

people as we're seeing right now in Trump's second term.

Well, I'm really heartened to think that you think some of these Democrats and tougher races are engaging on the tariffs. You mentioned a little bit earlier that Democrats are leading on the economy and polls. I agree that that's an important thing, that it's actually something of a milestone to have Democrats favored or more trusted on the economy than Republicans, but, and I want to

“ask you about this, I think that date is a little bit less conclusive than I'd like it to be.”

Sometimes, see polls, Republicans up, and for that to be happening, at a moment like this, when again, the case is so clear that Trump's policies are to blame for economic conditions being so abysmal. For that to happen, amid something like that, is a little disturbing to me, and I wonder candidly Simon, how much do you worry about the state of the Democratic brand right? Now obviously, it's not where it needs to be. Let's face it. So where are you on all that?

Yeah, no, I agree. Let me make three points about what I think's going to happen with the brand. One is, I think the further we get away from the election, the sort of ugly hangover from what happened in 2024 will be more in the rearview mirror, and it'll be less of a drag on us.

Second is that we're not running as a party brand. We're running candidates, and when candidates

actually are running against Republican candidates, we've been way out performing the current fundamentals of the election, right? And that's because when it's an actual Democrat and an actual Republican and not the abstract brand, we're doing much better. That's also, you also see that to be the case, and a lot of the house polling when you actually name the house candidate,

“our numbers get a little bit better. And then the third thing is, yes, I think it would be better”

for us as a national party to have a simple agenda. But what's going to happen is that the candidates in these races are going to be running on a simple agenda, whatever it is, and whether the national party does or not. Here's more of Trump here. He starts talking about his ballroom being under budget, and then a reporter says the costs have doubled. Listen to what happens next. Yeah, we're right now on budget under budget and ahead of schedule. I double the size of it

you dumb person. You are not a squad person. Simon, just to close this out, one thing I don't quite get is why isn't there more discussion of what a political disaster the ballroom is for Trump and Republicans? We just learned that vulnerable Republicans don't even want to vote for the thing, which is pretty staggering that it's not often that Republicans break from Trump. And here on something like the ballroom, even though there was an alleged assassination attempt,

and even though the entire right wing used that assassination attempt as propaganda for the ballroom, none of it worked, and Republicans are running from the project. That's a political

“catastrophe for them, though. Look, I think Trump goes to China in a few days, and he's going to”

go there an unbelievably weak in a very weak in position. His tariffs, the economy, the data on

tariffs were just which was a central bludgeon. He was using against the Chinese,

“we're just declared illegal for the second time. He's falling asleep regularly, looking like an”

old man who's ready to move on and do something else. Once it becomes clear and understood by all that this war was a failure, as opposed to it like people, and it did enormous harm to our economy and to our standing in the world, it's going to further drive Trump away from the American people. I am optimistic by nature. I think if you've been in politics for a long time,

“you have to believe that you can make things better, that you can improve people's lives,”

that you can improve the standing of your party. I think that right now, the Trump is feeling

the stench of failure is actually getting far more powerful than any sense that there in any kind

“of recovery right now, and if we put our heads down, I think we can have the election that we all”

want to have. Simon, great to talk to you as always. Greg, love to be with you. Thanks for

your incredible hard work. The hardest work in Man and Show Business, I've been calling you for years. I wish I could say that that isn't true Simon, thanks for coming on. Take care, thanks everybody. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.