Trump notches lowest approval rating ever. Panic sets in at the White House.
White House chief of staff Susie Wiles holds emergency meeting as Trump’s approval rating sinks to a dismal 32 percent.
Trump’s disastrous war in Iran and a faltering economy have set off a chain reaction inside the MAGA movement. Now, poll numbers show the president is in a political meltdown, and his aides are terrified.
According to a recent nationwide survey, just 32 percent of Americans approve of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president — the lowest of his second term and among the lowest of his political career.
According to American Research Group, sixty-three percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s performance, up from around 51 percent when Trump took office. In other words, half of Americans disapproved of Trump when he was sworn in again as president, and now nearly two thirds think he’s doing a poor job.
What’s behind the nosedive?
More than anything, it’s the economy. A majority of Americans believe the United States is already in a recession, and even among the Americans who still approve of Trump, a majority expect the economy to be worse a year from now. His Iran war — and soaring gas prices — have magnified these worries and driven defections from his fragile political coalition.
The White House is reportedly panicking.
Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, summoned dozens of top Republican operatives from across the country to an urgent closed-door summit in Washington yesterday. Her deputy, James Blair, was recently pulled from his White House duties to focus entirely on midterm electoral strategy. According to Politico, a person familiar with the secret summit characterized it as an effort to “intensify preparations” for what’s expected to be a “challenging cycle.” Translation: the president is burning the house down, and we don’t know what to do about it.
What’s changed here isn’t the strategy from Democrats. It’s that the MAGA base itself is more like quicksand than a dependable foundation. Indeed, the defections over the past few weeks have been remarkable in both breadth and velocity. From Megyn Kelly and Tim Pool to Marjorie Taylor Greene and Alex Jones, figures who spent years as load-bearing walls of the Trump media ecosystem have, in recent weeks, broken publicly and loudly.
In a new interview, Tucker Carlson apologized to his millions of followers, saying he misled them into supporting Donald Trump. In the podcast conversation, held with his brother and former Trump speechwriter Buckley Carlson, he offered up an extended mea culpa:
“You know, we’ll be tormented by it for a long time. I will be. And I want to say I’m sorry for misleading people. It was not intentional, that’s all I’ll say…You and I and everyone else who supported him — you wrote speeches for him, I campaigned for him — I mean, we’re implicated in this for sure. It’s not enough to say, ‘Well, I changed my mind’ — or like, ‘Oh, this is bad — I’m out.”
He added: “In very small ways, but in real ways, you and me and millions of people like us are the reason this is happening right now.”
It’s hard to overstate how much of an impact these defections are having. Anecdotally, people around the country report neighbors taking down Trump signs. Even stores that once sold Trump-themed merch going out of business. The dissatisfaction of MAGA “elites” with Trump is trickling fast down to the base.
This matters for a reason that extends beyond poll numbers. The Republican members of Congress who’ve spent the past year contorting themselves to avoid crossing Trump are watching these polls, too. Many of them have been less ideologically committed to Trumpism than “strategically” committed to it; in other words, they stayed close because he was an asset. Not any more.
As the midterms approach, I expect a wave of Republicans to quietly retreat from Trump because he’s a radioactive, political liability. The 32 percent figure, paired with an almost-six-point Republican disadvantage in midterm forecasting models, tells these career politicians all they need to know. Stick with Trump, and you’re toast.
To be clear, none of that has translated into the kind of institutional action that would actually constrain Trump. Republicans have avoided curtailing the president’s war powers in Iran, and they’ve avoided the kind of bruising oversight hearings and investigations you’d expect in the wake of the Epstein scandal, destructive tariffs, government insider trading, and the long list of corruption allegations consuming the Trump administration. The congressional Republican caucus remains, for now, a body of people who know better and do nothing.
But the political ground beneath them is deteriorating.
For the pro-democracy opposition, the strategic implication is strikingly clear today. The more Republicans are made to own Trump’s record — on prices, on Iran, and on the unraveling of our society — the more that MAGA incumbents become vulnerable. Susie Wiles understands this, which is why she’s scrambling. The question is whether the Democratic Party and the broader defiance in this country understand it well enough to press the advantage before the moment passes.
It’s time to stop talking about “affordability” and to start talking about “cost.” Donald Trump is costing this country everything. Higher prices, lower job prospects… more wars, fewer friends… bigger monuments and ballrooms, smaller household budgets — as citizens suffocate under Trump’s taxes and tariffs. All the while, Trumpworld seems to be getting richer through insider trading, billion-dollar lawsuits against the government they run, and “gifts” from foreign governments.
That’s to say nothing of the social costs we’re drowning under. Our power-hungry president is building the most sweeping, big-brother government America has ever seen. You can’t go anywhere without seeing Trump’s attempts to control American life or the consequences of his disastrous decisions — the airports, the grocery stores, the newspapers, the gas stations, the city streets with federal agents. Even local warehouse across the country are being repurposed into secret prisons for DHS. Trump’s greasy fingerprints are everywhere.
As we approach the midterms, we must make clear that Donald Trump is costing Americans their livelihoods and their way of life. Right now, even his most devoted followers are waking up to the fact that he’s been trying to screw them all along. History doesn’t offer many second chances at this kind of opening. So the political opposition must seize upon it.
Your friend, in defiance,
P.S. What’s coming up? We’re full-time focused on saving the republic. Join us for our next broadcast. Watch LIVE for free. Members get access to the replay.
DEFIANCE DAILY — Every weeknight @ 5pm ET. Watch our hour-long podcast LIVE on our DEFIANCE.News page, on our YouTube channel, or on my X account. Or you can watch the replay at DEFIANCE.News.
WEEKLY MISSION BRIEFING — Every Wednesday @ 5pm ET. Same ways to watch, above! Replays available afterwards.
WEEKLY COFFEE — Every Friday @ 2pm ET. Join us on Substack or at DEFIANCE.News for Members-only coffee every Friday at 2p ET. Replays available afterwards.
MONTHLY MEMBERS-ONLY MEETING — First Wednesday of every month @ 5pm ET. These are sent out the week of, via Zoom. Replays available afterwards.
The trump regime will try every trick in their playbook to interfere in free and fair elections: threatening poll workers, changing polling locations at the last minute like in the Texas Democratic primary, slowing down the mail for absentee ballots, bomb threats like what happened in 2024 in Houston, false advertising (like what they are doing in the voting for Virginia’s redistricting referendum), dark money campaigns like what happened to Senators Sherrod Brown and Bob Casey in 2024. GOTV, voter registration, voter protection hotlines, legal professionals volunteering in certain states. Then when the results don’t go their way there will be innumerable lawsuits like what happened in 2020. Illegal tariffs followed by an unconstitutional attack on Iran have the entire global economy in a shambles. They have only themselves to blame.
It‘s astounding that people believed hime after his first term and horrific they believed him again to elect him. Is it greed? Is it envy? Is it the desire that he will give them what they want? He doesn’t care about any of them.