Donald Trump has once again stepped up his threats to entirely wipe out Iran, but it somehow isn’t forcing Iran to make the deal he wants. The emptiness of the threats is embarrassing enough. But now, CBS News has published a series of extraordinary photographs of American bases and equipment abroad badly damaged by Iranian attacks. These pictures were leaked by anonymous U.S. service-members who did this because the truth about Trump’s war is being suppressed. As one put it: “This is major damage to our bases that hasn’t been communicated to the American public.” Given the tight controls that Trump and Pete Hegseth have tried to impose on their war propaganda, this is even more humiliating for them. We talked to international relations expert Nicholas Grossman. We discuss all the ways that Trump’s Iran quagmire is deepening, why those photos tell a deeply unnerving story about our nation, what’s wrong with Trump’s conception of “strength,” and why MAGA’s theory of war and power is leading us into catastrophe.

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Donald Trump exploded in wild fury at the Supreme Court after it blocked his scheme to corrupt vote-by-mail. But in his bizarrely unhinged tirade was a key tell: He called the ruling a “big loss for Republicans.” In effect, he openly admitted he’s angry because he won’t be able to rig the midterms—and because his party is more likely to lose them badly. This comes as a New York Times poll finds Democrats leading by nearly nine points in the generic ballot matchup. This is the gold-standard survey and it shows Democrats with a widening lead. It also shows Democrats suddenly leading on the economy and on immigration and finds his approval lower than any president heading into a midterm since George W. Bush before the 2006 Democratic blowout. As a Times analysis concludes, a “blue wave may be building.” Taken all together, it’s arguably his worst polling news of the cycle. We talked to Democratic strategist Caitlin Legacki, a veteran of midterms. We discuss the Times poll’s hidden findings, why Texas may not be a pipe dream, why the polls might soon start to tighten, and why that shouldn’t freak you out. 

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After AI scientists and executives called for a slowdown in unrestrained AI development, Donald Trump unleashed a series of crazed tirades to the contrary. He raged that the only oversight AI needs is a “STRONG AND SMART PRESIDENT,” which seemed to refer to him. He seethed that all such warnings are a “HOAX” and suggested it’s all a scam being perpetrated by America’s enemies. What’s striking about all this is how it unintentionally sabotages the GOP’s midterm strategy. Vulnerable Republicans have been calling for a vote on restraining AI data-center costs and others have pushed other regulatory ideas. Yet the leader of the Republican Party is saying none of this is needed. We talked to MS NOW’s James Downie, author of a new piece on the GOP’s midterm struggles. We discuss why Trump is badly undermining a core GOP strategic aim, how Trump has revealed himself as a conventional anti-regulatory plutocrat, and why Democrats, for their part, should place him right at the center of the story they’re telling about AI’s future.

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Donald Trump raged at a reporter who asked about his “midterm convention” offer to send $5,000 to voters if the GOP holds Congress. He snapped at her repeatedly, called her “the worst,” and even leaned in and glowered menacingly in her face. What makes this significant is her question: Why, she asked, do you need to pay voters to turn out if your economic policies are the smashing success you claim? This captures the core absurdity of the moment, and Trump has absolutely no answer for it. It’s no accident that this comes as the preliminary ratings for his first-night speech viewership on Fox News were a scant 2.5 million, even less than a Sean Hannity episode. The Times opined: “No Trump bump.” Mediaite called it a “dud.” We talked to New Republic senior editor Alex Shephard, author of a good piece on Trump’s political weakness. We discuss new data that shows the enthusiasm gap favoring Democrats, why those bad convention ratings are so humiliating for Trump in a deeper sense, how Trump-MAGA’s hold on the culture is vanishing, and the profound contradictions at the heart of MAGA’s Trump-worship. 

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Donald Trump just tailspinned again in the polls. In a new Quinnipiac survey, his overall approval is at 33 percent and he plummeted to a record low on the economy. Meanwhile, a CNN analysis finds that on the same issue, Trump is an astounding 52 points underwater with independents. That’s the context for Trump’s fake-promise to send $5,000 to every American if the GOP keeps Congress. Many critics dismantled the idea. But even Fox News is gently mocking it: One anchor pointed out that he’s made empty promises of cash before. Bret Baier noted that it would cost $1.3 trillion. And Laura Ingraham pressed Trump: Why not send people the money now? That gets to the heart of this idiotic effort to use federal money to rig the elections. We talked to political scientist Tom Schaller, author of a good piece for the Public Notice Substack on Trump’s inflation disaster. We discuss why the polls look much worse than in 2018, how Trump’s policies created this disaster for the GOP, and why Trump’s magical reality-bending powers might be finally running out.

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After Canada’s reciprocal tariffs kicked in this week, Donald Trump spiraled on social media. He posted a deranged map suggesting he wants to annex all of Canada. He posted a demented visual of himself domineering over Canada’s prime minister. And he posted an unhinged rant attacking Canada with convoluted threats. Now, Republican strategists tell The Hill in a baffled tone that they’re worried the trade war has become a big liability in the midterms. That comes as Republicans like Susan Collins and Kansas’s two GOP Senators have appeared at a loss to explain Trump’s approach. In short, even Republicans are flummoxed by Trump’s motives here. We talked to Vox’s Zack Beauchamp, who has reported deeply on the roots of Trump’s trade-warring. We discuss how unmoored Trump is from basic trade realities, how Canadians see the situation, what it means that even working people oppose his tariffs, and why it all gives Democrats an opening to restate the case against MAGA nationalism.

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Donald Trump unleashed a barrage of angry, unhinged threats over the last few days. He posted a map of all of North America—including Canada and Mexico—under conquest by the United States. He angrily threatened to cut off all U.S. sales of Canadian aerospace company Bombardier, even though it employs many U.S. workers and its supply chains are deeply entangled in U.S. communities. He crossed out the “Mexico” in New Mexico and replaced it with “America.” And he snarled that gas prices will drop below $2 after we “WIN” against Iran, even though he simply cannot get it to do his bidding right now. In all these cases, Trump is threatening things that are never, ever going to happen. The calculation that his voters will be satisfied by this—even as he’s failing them so badly across the board—reveals his seething contempt for them with great clarity. We talked to Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, who writes well about MAGA psychology. We discuss why Trump genuinely thinks this stuff will sate MAGA, how this reveals his profoundly dim view of his supporters, why it was a catastrophe that the media overinterpreted 2024, and what it means that the culture has moved well beyond Trump and MAGA.

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Donald Trump’s tailspinning continues. A CNN analysis finds that Trump has a lower approval rating than any of his predecessors going into midterms in this millennium. That’s worse than Joe Biden in 2022, Barack Obama in 2014 and 2010, and even George W. Bush in 2006. Meanwhile, Trump says he’ll campaign heavily this fall, but humiliatingly, Republicans are leaking to Politico that they don’t want him anywhere near them on the trail. And The Washington Post reports that amid GOP fears of his toxicity, he’s running ads about himself and his super PAC may hoard its funds. Why? Because his team fears its fundraising ability may dry up after the midterms—meaning they anticipate a big loss. We talked to veteran political handicapper Charlie Cook about his new piece digging into the GOP “nightmare,” why Trump’s unpopularity may be historically unique, and why that’s making conventional midterm patterns unusually bad for the GOP. 

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Original air date: April 3, 2026

During Donald Trump’s speech on Iran this week, he revealed too much. In a line that sounded partly ad-libbed, he declared that the Strait of Hormuz “will open up naturally. It will just open up naturally.” This should be read as a straight-up admission that Trump has no idea how to fix the colossal mess he’s made, and that he’s just washing his hands of it entirely. That’s utterly damning. Meanwhile, Politico reports that Republicans privately fear the speech did nothing to help them politically; as one put it: “What the hell did he just say?” Those things are related: The worse this war gets, the more it will hurt Republicans in the midterms. We talked to foreign policy writer and podcaster David Rothkopf, author of a good piece about the speech. We discuss Trump’s implicit admission of failure, the deeper reasons this is developing into such a fiasco, why it’s a trap for Republicans, and what the post-Trump Democratic Party should look like. 

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Donald Trump just erupted at MAGA allies for opposing his war. In one tirade, he attacked Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and others as “FAKE MAGA.” In another, he slammed them as “Low IQ.” Similarly, his pollster, John McLaughlin, claimed the MAGA base “doesn’t consider” those critics “conservative” anymore. So disagreeing with Trump intrinsically makes you non-MAGA? This reveals Trump believes MAGA is whatever he says it is at any given moment—that Trump and his pollster really do view MAGA as a cult. We’ve written about this dynamic before, but decided it was worth a pod episode. So we talked to New Republic staff writer Perry Bacon, author of a great piece on Trump and the global right. We discuss why Trump’s international and domestic allies are deserting him, how his excommunication of top MAGA figures is shrinking the movement, why Trump believes he can control the minds of his voters, and why all this could hurt GOP chances of holding the Senate. 

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Original air date: January 30, 2026

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 white supremacist Nick Fuentes labeling Pretti a “race traitor.” MAGA doesn’t want to let the GOP even appear to moderate. We talked to Jennifer Rubin, editor-in-chief of The Contrarian, who has a new piece urging Democrats to seize this moment. We discuss how MAGA’s white nationalism has landed “moderate” Republicans in a trap, why this provides an opening to divide the Trump coalition, and what Democrats can do to demonstrate that they side with the American people against Trump-MAGA’s violent lawlessness. 

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