A new CNN poll finds Donald Trump’s approval at an abysmal 36 percent. And a Washington Post survey finds him absolutely tanking on just about all major issues. But to Trump, this cannot be real: He just issued an angry, rambling tirade about how such polls are "fake." He even declared that his support is “silent,” while insisting he got many millions more votes in 2024 than he actually got. Amusingly, this came even as Fox News aired a striking graphic showing Trump’s approval on tariffs at an ...
Feb 24, 2026•23 min
After the Supreme Court struck down Donald Trump’s tariffs, he detonated. He targeted justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett, fuming that the ruling was an “embarrassment to their families.” He doubled down on the idea that he has unilateral tariff power. He tacitly threatened to investigate the high court for foreign influences. He called the ruling a “disgrace to our nation.” Yet this is backfiring: It prompted GOP Representative Don Bacon to declare that this might prompt more GOP votes ...
Feb 23, 2026•21 min
After British police arrested the former Prince Andrew in connection with revelations involving Jeffrey Epstein, a reporter asked Donald Trump directly if anyone will face accountability in the United States. Trump rambled and rambled, insisting he had been “totally exonerated.” That’s not true, but regardless, Trump could not explain why accountability is happening in other countries, but not in ours. He also had nothing whatsoever to say about whether his Justice Department will ever seek acco...
Feb 20, 2026•26 min
Donald Trump has the midterms on his mind. A few days ago he erupted in a wild tirade on Truth Social , raging about voter fraud and voter ID while urging Republicans to make them central in the elections. He’s now pinned this rant to the top of his feed. Over the last 24 hours, he’s been on a tear, elevating half a dozen other tweets on these topics. By “warning” that Republicans must centralize voter fraud, he’s actually telling them to engage in mass voter suppression or perish. He has good r...
Feb 19, 2026•19 min
In today’s episode, we talk to Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey about the latest developments in his city. Donald Trump and border czar Tom Homan have said they’re winding down ICE’s occupation, and Frey tells us there are some positive signs in this regard. But Frey also discusses how ICE violence has been directed from the very top, shares new details about the enormous and lasting damage it did to the city, and explains how the extraordinary solidarity between ordinary people there is enabling Mi...
Feb 18, 2026•26 min
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt went full North Korea cult propagandist on Fox News, gushing that the ICE crackdown in Minneapolis has been a “resounding success.” Never mind that two Americans were murdered, violent civil conflict has reigned, and Trump’s approval has cratered. Leavitt also undercut her own spin by describing all arrested by ICE as “criminals” and insisting the operation is “targeted”—revealing she can’t tell the truth about its targeting of noncriminals because it...
Feb 17, 2026•24 min
Donald Trump’s losses are mounting. His border czar just announced a large drawdown of federal agents in Minnesota after protests turned public opinion. Job creation during Trump’s first year was worse than previously known. The country is losing manufacturing jobs. Trump is a weak and failing president—and there are now signs that Democrats are acting like it. But couldn’t they do more to seize the moment? Yes! The New Republic has a special issue online right now that’s full of pieces laying o...
Feb 13, 2026•38 min
President Trump is tacitly threatening to interfere in the 2026 elections. He’s urged Republicans to “nationalize” them and recently said he regrets not seizing voting machines in 2020. Last month the FBI seized ballot boxes in Fulton County, Georgia as part of some sort of criminal investigation that remains murky. Now it’s being reported that this FBI move originated with claims from a well-known election denier that have been widely debunked. This raises serious worries that Trump could direc...
Feb 12, 2026•17 min
Donald Trump’s top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, just offered an extraordinary statement on Fox News. He admitted that we should lower our expectations for job creation because of Trump’s success in removing immigrants from the country. In essence, Navarro suggested it was a good thing to have lower jobs numbers provided the (supposed) cause is higher deportations, and confirmed that removing immigrants isn’t creating jobs for Americans. We think this provides an opening to explore what MAGA eco...
Feb 11, 2026•30 min
Donald Trump was initially angry over the decision to feature Bad Bunny in the Super Bowl halftime show. But then, as he performed, Trump’s rage worsened: In a furious rant , he claimed the show was a “slap in the face” to our country, that Bad Bunny’s use of Spanish means “nobody understands a word this guy is saying,” and that the show was “absolutely terrible.” Other MAGA figures fumed that the show was a betrayal of America. Meanwhile, CNN polling guru Harry Enten details in a new analysis t...
Feb 10, 2026•22 min
After Donald Trump posted a viciously racist meme depicting the Obamas as apes, a self-identified three-time Trump voter called in to C-Span and unloaded . He described the meme as an “embarrassment to our country,” apologized for backing Trump, called out his lying and bribe-taking, and ripped him as “rotten” and “pathetic.” This comes after many Republicans condemned the post, leading the White House to take it down and blame an unnamed staffer for it. We think all this captures a newfound Tru...
Feb 09, 2026•21 min
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt lost her temper with a reporter who asked if Donald Trump intends to flood polling places with ICE agents during the midterms. She called the question “silly” and “hypothetical” and “disingenuous,” even though Steve Bannon, who’s influential in the White House, explicitly said this week that this will happen. This comes as Trump himself called for Republicans to “nationalize the voting.” Leavitt also struggled to spin this threat from Trump, suggestin...
Feb 06, 2026•21 min
Donald Trump just claimed in an interview that the events in Minnesota suggest that ICE needs to use a “softer touch.” He also struggled to create the impression that he’s been working constructively with local officials there. While all this is just spin, it reveals an awareness that these events have put him in a politically weak position. Indeed, this comes as Trump’s plans for vast migrant prison camps are hitting angry opposition in unlikely places : In a deep red, partly rural county in Vi...
Feb 05, 2026•24 min
After The New York Times reported that President Trump has backtracked on a major demand he’d made on Harvard University, he spiraled out of control in three wild tirades . He angrily insisted on a correction from the Times , and levied unhinged new threats against Harvard, demanding a new billion-dollar extortion payment while calling for the university’s criminal prosecution. Harvard officials clearly leaked word of Trump’s backtracking to humiliate him at a moment of political weakness. It wo...
Feb 04, 2026•22 min
Donald Trump is making it explicit. In an angry diatribe to a right-wing podcaster , Trump told his usual lies about vote-cheating by undocumented immigrants, but this time he explicitly called on Republicans to “take over the voting.” He also darkly promised something new out of Georgia, where his FBI is investigating an election center. He singled out supposed fraud in Minnesota, lying that he won it three times. And he said he’s not backing down in the state. Taken all together, the threat is...
Feb 03, 2026•22 min
Donald Trump appears in deep denial about how widely hated his ICE raids have become. He let out a strange, rambling tirade to reporters about how the “silent majority” is still behind what ICE is doing, bizarrely citing approval of the raids among his own White House employees to make the case. In another rant , he lied uncontrollably about the protesters, about crime in Minneapolis, and more. Interestingly, this comes as a poll from none other than Fox News finds Trump deeply under water on im...
Feb 02, 2026•21 min
President Trump and the GOP are in a growing panic over ICE. Trump’s advisers are sinking into recriminations. Republican officials are publicly admitting that his immigration agenda “seems to be not working” and that the GOP is “losing” the political battle over it. Others are suggesting that Alex Pretti’s killing was “murder” and that it’s time to “recalibrate.” Yet MAGA figures are pulling in the other direction. Media Matters has a good roundup : Many are urging Trump to escalate , with whit...
Jan 30, 2026•24 min
GOP Senators Thom Tillis and Lisa Murkowski have now called for the resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. This angered Donald Trump, who lashed out at them as “losers” and “terrible Senators” and belittled them in other ways. But Noem’s tenure does look shaky. A new government review of the killing of Alex Pretti undercuts Noem’s initial account. Senate Majority Leader John Thune is declining to back Noem. And Stephen Miller undercut her , blaming DHS for a potential breach in ...
Jan 29, 2026•20 min
After we recorded this episode, we noticed that Axios is reporting that anger is rising at Stephen Miller inside Donald Trump’s inner circle. Some White House officials blame Miller for smearing ICE murder victim Alex Pretti. This comes as reports in The Wall Street Journa l and The New York Times suggest that other top advisers want ICE to change course in a way that is running afoul of Miller’s designs. That all this is leaking out shows internal dissatisfaction with Miller is growing. Meanwhi...
Jan 28, 2026•27 min
As the country absorbs the shock of Alex Pretti’s murder by federal agents in Minneapolis, President Trump is politically on the defensive. He sent his border czar there and sort of made nice with Minnesota’s Democratic governor. Meanwhile, Republicans and senior ICE officials are panicking about the situation. Democratic Senators are vowing to oppose funding for the Department of Homeland Security absent major restrictions on ICE. Will they hold the line? We talked to Senator Chris Murphy of Co...
Jan 27, 2026•25 min
The Supreme Court is about to rule on Donald Trump’s tariffs, which lower courts deem illegal. But guess what: Trump himself has badly undermined his own case for them. He’s claimed broad tariff powers by absurdly declaring trade deficits an economic emergency. But he keeps admitting to other rationales for them. In a crazed tirade in Davos, he said he threatened Switzerland with tariffs partly because a female leader’s voice annoyed him. He unleashed a long rant in a letter threatening Brazil w...
Jan 26, 2026•23 min
Donald Trump exploded in fury on Thursday at polling and media companies. He raged over “Fake and Fraudulent Polling,” said this should be a “criminal offense,” lashed out at numerous news organizations, and vowed to put a stop to the “Polling SCAM.” He’s plainly talking about The New York Times ’s new poll , which finds Trump absolutely flailing on most major issues. He’s 18 points underwater on immigration, a majority of working class voters disapproves of his handling of it, and public opposi...
Jan 23, 2026•29 min
By now you’ve seen President Trump’s big speech at Davos. The slurring, the confusing of Greenland and Iceland, the nonsense about wind power, and the racist smearing of Somalis before the whole world — it was an unmitigated disaster. But things got worse when Trump’s propagandists spun it all as a world-historical triumph: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt unleashed an extraordinary stream of obsequious praise , absurdly declaring that “America is back” and that Trump played “leader ...
Jan 22, 2026•30 min
Over the weekend, President Trump sent a deranged text to Norway’s prime minister linking his failure to win the Nobel Peace prize to the possibility of taking Greenland by military force. That wasn’t a one-off: Trump said something similar in rambling remarks on Tuesday . Trump’s lunacy is prompting a medical expert to sound the alarm : He notes that Trump’s conduct should “trigger a bipartisan congressional inquiry into presidential fitness.” That was amplified by a Danish politician, who call...
Jan 21, 2026•24 min
Last week, President Trump unleashed an angry tirade over anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis, threatening to invoke the “INSURRECTION ACT” against “professional agitators and insurrectionists,” i.e. , ordinary people. On Friday, Trump seemed to suggest he might not, but he also left the threat very much dangling out there. Indeed, after we recorded this episode, Trump kept raging, seething about jailing Minnesota Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, sharing tweets about “anti-ICE anarchists,” and exploding a...
Jan 20, 2026•23 min
After fielding a perfectly legitimate question about ICE abuses on Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt lost her temper. She smeared the reporter as a “left-wing hack.” She then broadened her indictment to the whole “fake” media. She also angrily ridiculed another journalist for asking why Trump recently “joked” that we shouldn’t have midterm elections. That Leavitt was triggered by questions about ICE again shows the White House is refusing to admit error of any kind. This com...
Jan 16, 2026•23 min
House Speaker Mike Johnson’s response to growing ICE violence is really something to behold. In one long, rambling answer , he blamed shooting victim Renee Good in every which way, absurdly claiming she’d been “taunting” ICE officers and “impeded” them, while insisting they’d been “very patient.” In another one , he played sleazy little games, claiming the violence represents the “tragic consequences” of ICE facing “too much resistance” — again blaming the victims for violence against them, with...
Jan 15, 2026•24 min
Donald Trump is going all in on the lunacy that the Minneapolis shooting should prompt a crackdown on the left . He unleashed ugly tirades on this, claiming the protests are “fake” and that officials are investigating their financial backers. He also lied uncontrollably about crime in Minnesota while hinting darkly that the crackdown there will get worse. This comes as a new Quinnpiac poll finds majorities of voters say the ICE shooting is not justified (53-35) and disapprove of ICE enforcement ...
Jan 14, 2026•22 min
There have been some ugly developments around the horrific killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis by an ICE agent. Donald Trump offered a vile new excuse for the shooting, claiming the victim was “disrespectful” to law enforcement. Meanwhile, a damning Wall Street Journal report finds that since July, there have been 13 examples of federal agents firing into civilian vehicles, with eight people shot and two confirmed dead. What’s more, the report suggests much of this was avoidable. All of that is...
Jan 13, 2026•17 min
The other day, five Senate Republicans helped pass a measure blocking President Trump’s authority to wage war in Venezuela without Congress. That caused Trump to erupt in a crazed fury . He attacked those Republicans by name, fumed that they had weakened his authority, and raged that “they should never be elected to office again.” He even seethed at their “stupidity.” This comes amid other signs of GOP defiance: A number of House Republicans backed extending Affordable Care Act subsidies and oth...
Jan 12, 2026•24 min
