Advertise on podcast: THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

In a remarkable piece, The Atlantic reports that Donald Trump is privately furious over his inability to force Iran to stop the war. As one adviser notes, he is “used to snapping his fingers” to control Republicans and the media, so he is now “losing his mind that Iran won’t listen” to him. This comes as his new press secretary, Katie Zacharia, turned in a debut performance that’s drawing serious fire from the right. White House officials are sharply criticizing it as “brutal.” One right-wing media personality harshly mocked her as not “serious,” claiming that “she’s auditioning for a job on Fox News.” These stories are connected: They both reveal Trump as an emperor-has-no-clothes figure who can’t fathom why his control over events is deserting him. We talked to Mark Jacob, who skillfully dissects White House follies in his Stop the Presses newsletter. He explains why having someone like Zacharia as White House press secretary is a deadly serious matter for the country, how institutional cowardice persuaded Trump of his omnipotence, how that’s now cracking up under him, and why all this will make him even more dangerous. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark recently held a focus group with people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 that took an extraordinary turn. After being shown Trump’s vile taxpayer-funded ad, in which he rages about expelling “globalists” and “Marxists” and the “fake news media,” they were revolted. They called Trump “despicable” and “power hungry” and a “narcissist” who spews  “nothing but lies.” We think this suggests Trump may be alienating right-leaning voters not just over costs, but with his totalitarian-dictator rule as well. So we talked to political theorist Paul Crider about the possibilities this focus group raises. We discuss his new piece arguing for the creation of a broad anti-corruption, anti-authoritarian coalition, dissect new GOP panic about losses in deep red areas, ask whether Trump’s dictator-megalomania is turning even those places against Trump, and examine how Democrats are creating a new politics in response to it all.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump rages regularly at Fox News. But Axios now reports that there’s more behind this than meets the eye: White House and GOP operatives have privately pressured Fox for months to change how it’s covering Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. The problem? By giving El-Sayed airtime and covering him in a somewhat factual way, it’s made it harder for Trump and the GOP to smear him as a crazy radical jihadist. Translation: Don’t let voters learn the truth about this guy; it’ll make it harder for us to beat him! That is so deeply humiliating. But it also gets at a bigger story about how the manly men of MAGA get so whiny when the electoral going gets tough. We talked to Jennifer Rubin, editor-in-chief of The Contrarian. We discuss her new piece on the flimsiness of MAGA machismo, probe the deeper reasons Trump can’t allow the truth about El-Sayed to be told, and dissect a new Pew poll showing Trump’s approval down to an abysmal 30 percent. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today’s episode, nonpartisan political forecaster Kyle Kondik makes some critical points about Donald Trump’s approval rating. First, it may be so low that he’s even underwater in House districts that he carried by double digits. Second, unlike in 2018, his approval is underwater in red states with big Senate races. Indeed, the latest polling averages have him sinking below 35 percent, a key threshold. And Times polling finds him upside down in five Senate-race states he carried by double digits. Taken together, it’s clear his public standing is unraveling. Meanwhile, GOP leaks are growing deafening. One GOP operative said: “If the bottom continues falling out like it has been, this will be worse than 2006.” Worse than the GOP’s epic 2006 losses under George W. Bush! For the straight story on the state of the House map, we talked to Kondik, managing director at Sabato’s Crystal Ball. He explains how Trump’s low approval is expanding the map for Democrats in surprising ways, interprets the latest GOP spending in deep red areas, and why he thinks Democrats might end up with 230 House seats. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump unleashed a long, crazed tirade this week about Dr. Annie Andrews, the Democratic Senate candidate in South Carolina. He attacked her with the vicious slur “tranny” not once but twice. He smeared her with numerous lies about her positions, insisting she is for “Defunding the Police” and “Transgender for Everyone.” The source of Trump’s rage is obvious: He fears the race is unexpectedly competitive. Indeed, two GOP-aligned pollsters—Trafalgar and Inside Advantage—recently found the race to be within one point. This is very bad news for Trump, and worse, Republicans plainly have their own polling showing something similar: A major GOP Super PAC just poured $5 million into the contest. The odds here are very, very long, especially once GOP money starts flowing. But since Trump clearly fears the race, we got a download on it from Jalisa Washington-Price, a veteran South Carolina Democratic operative who runs the pro-Andrews PAC Fresh Start. She explains the demographics of the state, why national Democrats should invest here, why the road ahead is very difficult—but not impossible!—and where this race fits into the recent history of the South.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump has been holding rallies in red states, and in a pair of articles, The New York Times reported that his crowd sizes have been diminishing. This triggered an epic tirade from Trump: He raged that his rallies are “PACKED” and claimed they are “HOTTER” than ever. He even accused the media of dishonestly ignoring their “thunderous applause” from “thousands and thousands of people.” This comes as Republicans themselves admit that the rallies actually reveal the weakness of the Trump-GOP position, which is requiring Trump to desperately energize his most loyal supporters to salvage races in deep-red areas. As one Republican told CNN: “This is a five-alarm fire.” We talked to Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, who’s been writing well about Trump’s struggles with his unpopularity. We dig into the latest polling showing red-state Senate races trending Democratic, discuss whether GOP-leaning voters will really be able to support Democrats, and look at how MAGA may be getting deenergized by Trump’s failure to vanquish liberals in the culture wars.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A new Fox poll showing James Talarico ahead in the Texas Senate race unnerved Fox figures. One MAGA guest on Fox exclaimed: “Texans have to wake up!” The poll also has truly terrible news for Trump: His approval is upside down in this reliably red state, he’s cratering with Latinos, and he’s losing the working class, which is his base. He’s even underwater with non-MAGA Republicans, a key demographic that Talarico has worked to win. This comes as Republicans are leaking word that they’re shifting spending out of the North Carolina Senate race, which appears gone. They’re putting more into shoring up the MAGA-GOP candidate in Iowa and even Kansas Senator Roger Marshall, showing serious worry deep in MAGA country. We talked to political theorist Alan Elrod. We discuss how the Texas GOP’s white male supremacy and violent ethnonationalism perfectly represent today’s Republican Party, and how it’s deeply alienating mainstream America. We also dig into how it’s all creating space for a new moral language to emerge among Democrats.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton privately admitted that Donald Trump’s midterm convention in Texas was a serious problem for the state’s Republican candidates. Asked about this, Trump unleashed a long, tortured monologue, and it was revealing. He kept returning to the number of viewers that he got at the convention, and kept repeating that he won Texas multiple times. He can only see this in terms of how he fared there, with no regard for GOP candidates. We think that Trump’s inability to clearly perceive his own standing with voters is a genuinely serious, far-reaching problem for Republicans. So we talked to Madison Andrus, an official with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who’s focused on the region. She shares new internal polling showing Democrats leading in key South Texas races, explains the shift away from Trump in the Rio Grande Valley and why it’s important, and discusses how broad the national map has gotten for Democrats. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump has been running propaganda ads starring, well, himself as a way to help the GOP in the midterms. The ads are government-funded, and one official even suggested that the payment scheme is partly designed to get media attention to the ads, amplifying them further. It’s appallingly corrupt and potentially illegal. But, amusingly, they’re backfiring: A new Quinnipiac poll shows that Trump is more toxic for the GOP than we thought. It finds his approval at an abysmal 34 percent, and at 31 percent on the economy, a record low for him. Worse, Democrats now lead Republicans on the economy, international conflicts and immigration, three traditional GOP strengths, underscoring just how big a drag he’s become. We talked to David Corn, author of the new book How Russia Won and a New Republic piece on Trumpian propaganda. We discuss how badly Trump is screwing the GOP, why those TV ads are destined to fail, why he’ll grow more dangerous as Election Day approaches, and how to prepare for it. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump’s ban on a range of Canadian imports just went into effect, and The New York Times calls this a sign that the trade war has grown “vicious.” In a rambling tirade this week, Trump upped the ante in a dark way, calling Canada “one of the worst countries in the entire world.” Trump also said almost in passing that we get along with China better than we get along with Canada. We think it shouldn’t pass unnoticed just how casually Trump will toss aside a longtime ally. Trump also unleashed his top trade adviser to say sneeringly nasty things about Canada and Canadians, another sign that MAGA nationalism is growing more malicious. Meanwhile, Republicans tell the Los Angeles Times that the trade war is really bad news for the GOP. In one focus group, almost all swing voters in Michigan opposed it. We talked to New Republic contributing editor Virginia Heffernan, who’s been writing well about the economic roots of GOP midterm woes. She explains why it’s so dumb of Trump to order Americans to hate Canada—and why it’s all tailor made to get MAGA-adjacent “diesel class” voters to turn on Trump.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Republicans leaking about the midterms are growing more alarmed. One GOP operative in Iowa says this: “It feels like it could be a wipeout.” In story after story, Republicans are confiding about their mounting panic. A GOP pollster who privately told donors that the Senate might hold was mocked by Republicans themselves as “delusional.” Meanwhile, over the last few days, Trump has unraveled in a series of panicky Truth Social posts. In one, he ranted at length about how great the economy is and ordered Americans to “VOTE FOR REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES.” In several other posts, he raged at the media for reporting “Fake Polls” while not reporting all the fabulous economic news. We talked to Melissa Toufanian, managing director at the progressive firm Navigator Research, which has done interesting polling on Trump supporters who now regret their vote. She explains what’s really happening with voters in red states with big races, what focus groups reveal about how Trump-backing constituencies see him now, and why politicians from both parties should listen carefully to what voters are really telling them.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A few days ago, Donald Trump exploded in an extended tirade at news organizations. Why? Because they had suspended TV pool coverage of him to show solidarity with three news outlets he’d banned from the White House. This resulted in no TV footage of his reception of Xi Jinping at the White House. Trump absurdly raged that news orgs were trying to deny him coverage of a major success. But in saying this, he actually revealed that he badly needs the attention of news outlets. Without this attention, he shrivels. His fury shows that if news orgs collectively join together to resist things like his press ban—which has now been blocked in court—it can actually work. We talked to Paul Waldman, author of a good piece on Trump’s diminishing stature. We discuss the ways Trump’s power is a media creation, why this saga shows we need more collective institutional resistance to him, and what that might look like as he keeps shrinking. (After we recorded, Trump banned just CNN more narrowly, excluding it from Air Force One, but it’s unclear whether that will last.) Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Iowa radio host Steve Deace just unleashed an extraordinary social media screed. He confided that GOP pollsters have informed House Republicans that GOP +15 districts are now straight toss-ups, and GOP +10 districts are now “underwater.” He said he regrets this deeply—he badly wants Donald Trump to succeed—but critically, he also declared bluntly that Trump and his Iran war are fully to blame for this fiasco. In a serious humiliation for Trump, he sharply criticized the war’s rationale and warned that this is “risking what’s left of the Trump presidency.” Ouch! This state of play is confirmed by Trump’s own super PAC, which is sinking money into deep red Iowa districts. So we talked to Iowa Democratic Party chair Rita Hart. She discusses whether the landscape is as bad as Deace says, why Trumpy areas are turning on the president, and how to convert this moment into durable gains in rural America.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Out of the three news organizations that Donald Trump has banned from the White House, he reserves special fury for CNN. He erupted at reporter Kaitlan Collins, posting that she’s an “unhappy person” and a “SLEAZEBAG” who suffers from a “TRUMP addiction.” He also tried to humiliate Collins in person at the United Nations. And he posted a video mocking CNN reporters in truly dumb and juvenile terms. This comes as legal experts have picked apart the White House’s case for the ban. It now rests partly on specious claims about national security, and the details are monumentally absurd. We talked to New Republic staff writer Timothy Noah, who has written well on this saga. We discuss why the White House legal case is so weak, how Trump’s ongoing diminishment is encouraging institutional resistance to him, why his decline will worsen, and why people should stop treating him as invincible. (After we recorded, a judge seemed skeptical of the White House’s arguments.)  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The polling just keeps getting worse for the GOP. A new Reuters survey finds Donald Trump’s approval at 32 percent—the worst in Reuters polling of both his terms. He’s at only 73 percent among Republicans, and on cost-of-living he’s at an astonishing 17 percent, both potential disasters for the GOP. This comes as a CNN poll finds voters souring on the war in unheard-of numbers. Meanwhile, panicky GOP leaks are turning into a flood: GOP operatives tell Politico that the races in North Carolina and Georgia are rapidly slipping away. Others privately admit they’re badly on defense in red states and districts. One GOP operative candidly declares: “The bottom is beginning to fall out.” Is it really this bad? We talked to Morgan Jackson, the veteran North Carolina Democratic operative on Roy Cooper’s Senate campaign. He explains why Trump’s collapse with independents is an underappreciated story, why what’s happening in North Carolina and Georgia could have major long-term political consequences, and why he still expects North Carolina to be very, very close. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices