THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

After Vivek Ramaswamy ran that vile ad attacking Amy Acton in the Ohio gubernatorial race, Donald Trump aggressively defended it. That sent out a command to MAGA to get behind the ad. But now Republicans just leaked an internal poll to Axios showing that the ad is backfiring in humiliating fashion: It is making voters more likely to pick Acton over Ramaswamy rather than less. On top of that, Republicans fear this could hurt the party in the Ohio Senate race, too. That’s striking, because if Democrats win that contest, they’re a lot more likely to win the...

In a remarkable move, Fox News just shifted numerous House races toward Democrats. Fox finds them pulling even or favored in really Trumpy places like Kentucky’s 6th district and North Carolina’s 11th district. Fox also shifted the Ohio Senate race to “Lean Democratic.” In both cases Fox cited recent polling—including its own—as the justification. These bombshell incursions into deep red territory made Trump’s tirade at a Texas rally Tuesday look truly delusional. Trump bizarrely suggested his Iran war is a stupendous success that’s making our country “an absolute fortune.” He even weirdly implied his juvenile changin...

Donald Trump is stewing about elections big time. He raged at Senator Lisa Murkowski for opposing his dumb effort to rig the Alaska Senate race, fumed over imagined voter-fraud in the upcoming midterms, and seethed that the right’s huge loss in Brazil was “rigged.” It’s no accident that this unraveling comes as the early-voting data looks so dubious for the GOP that even some MAGA data analysts seem rattled by it. One leading MAGA figure admitted she’s refraining from posting the early-vote numbers because they’ll hurt the right’s “morale.” Another acknowledged that the electorate looks far too nonw...

Donald Trump seethed wildly at NBC reporter Monica Alba after she asked him tough questions about his support for that vile ad attacking Ohio gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton for supposedly lying about her past. Alba pointed out that Acton’s childhood involved “serious sexual abuse allegations,” prompting Trump to bark “quiet!” at Alba, rage that she’s being “fresh,” and belittle her as a “horrible little reporter.” It’s notable that Alba is relatively young given her level of success, because Trump is always most vicious towards young female reporters. This all comes as even Fox News figures are growing very uncomfort...

In dense and convoluted remarks, Donald Trump defended that disgusting ad in the Ohio gubernatorial race. The ad from Republican Vivek Ramaswamy featured the mother of Democrat Amy Acton calling her a liar. But it quickly emerged that Acton was apparently raped by her step-father, the mother’s husband. The move backfired spectacularly, as numerous Republicans, including Ohio governor Mike DeWine strongly condemned the ad and GOP panic over the race erupted. Even MAGA appears divided. We talked to Jim Swift, a senior editor at The Bulwark, who wrote a good piece on this fiasco. We discuss the deeper re...

Donald Trump just unleashed a panicky string of posts—see here, here, here, and here—in which he frantically urged Republicans to vote by mail early. Amusingly, this comes after he told Republicans for months that mail-balloting is fraudulent to pass his SAVE America Act. Now that his efforts to nix vote-by-mail have flopped, he’s prodding Republicans to adopt it—effectively admitting his attacks on vote-by-mail were a scam to help him rig the election. Mail voting is an essential piece of pre-election-day voting, so his “fraud” nonsense could be discouraging GOP early voting, too. So what does the data say...

With less than two weeks until Election Day, the Michigan Senate race is more or less on a knife’s edge. Amid all this, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has had some hugely viral moments lately, tangling with a MAGA plant over a question about the Muslim Brotherhood and battling with JD Vance over the vice president’s vile attacks on him. We think El-Sayed is developing an interesting way of doing politics that seems attuned to the information wars of the Trump era. Will it work in a swingy state that’s coming down to the wire? We talked to El-Say...

Donald Trump’s approval just sank to an abysmal 33-66 in the new Washington Post poll, a record low in Post polling. The survey also finds Democrats leading in the battle for the House by eight points. Meanwhile, the new NBC poll also finds Trump below 35 percent and puts the Democratic lead at 10 points. The polling averages also suggest a Democratic lead pressing double digits. Small wonder that Republicans are leaking to Politico that they blame this debacle squarely on Trump. One says Trump is clueless about what “voters care about,” adding: “It’s insane.” Others are sharply criticizing Trump’s super PAC  operative...

In recent days, Donald Trump has exploded over James Talarico’s Senate candidacy in Texas. In a long, tortured tirade, Trump repeatedly called him “James TalaFREAKO” and raged at Karl Rove for supposedly wanting Ken Paxton to lose. He even ordered Fox to stop airing Rove. In another tirade, he fumed that Paxton is the “greatest attorney general” in Texas’s history and angrily wondered why Talarico hasn’t been defeated already. Meanwhile, in a striking exchange, a Fox anchor and a GOP Congressman appeared rattled as they wondered aloud why Texans appear prepared to vote for Talarico despite him obviously being...

The new national poll from Fox is absolutely awful for Donald Trump and the Republican Party. It finds Trump at a record low approval, shows him absolutely cratering with independents and Latinos, and even finds him underwater with noncollege whites and non-MAGA Republicans. It also finds Democrats expanding their lead in the generic ballot matchup to nine points and shows them with commanding leads among many key voter groups. But what if the polls are wrong? Republicans are betting on this, and it’s the topic of a big and serious debate among many observers. So we talked to Nata...

Earlier this week, Donald Trump made some audacious claims. He insisted at length that his rallies are having a “tremendously positive impact” on Republicans’ chances in the midterms, because it causes their support to “go up.” He also insisted costs are plummeting. But on Wednesday, the new Consumer Price Index report demolished that claim by showing inflation getting worse. Meanwhile, numerous Republicans leaked to Politico that the House is all but lost. And critically, they cited Trump as the main overarching reason for this. As one lamented: “Trump has made this election all about himself.” Another griped that “the biggest problem” is Tru...

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...

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...

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 humilia...

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 ...

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 simi...

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 C...

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...

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 pr...

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...

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 nas...

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 “Fak...

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 tog...

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 su...

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 t...

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 di...

Donald Trump’s efforts to ban news organizations from the White House are backfiring. Trump said straight out that he barred them because their coverage displeased him, and when the outlets sued on Monday, they cited his own words as proof that he’d retaliated against their reporting. That’s likely to work. And other news outlets sided with them, suspending pooled coverage and resulting in Trump getting less TV attention. Meanwhile, Axios reports that Trump advisers confide that they fear he’s feeling “powerless” as his losses pile up and a likely midterm defeat approaches. He’s retreating “to his worst impulses” and...

A striking new poll finds Democrat Mary Peltola leading GOP Senator Dan Sullivan by 46-41 in the Alaska Senate race. This is big news: Because quality polling of Alaska is so rare, it’s a real indicator that a Senate majority is now truly gettable for Democrats. The poll also finds Trump badly underwater and absolutely tanking with independents—in Alaska! The kicker? The survey was done for AARP by Trump pollster Tony Fabrizio, along with Democratic pollster John Anzalone, so Republicans will take it very seriously. Indeed, GOP panic is worsening: Republicans are privately talking about pulling money out of t...

Fox News is having profound trouble coping with the spate of terrible stories hitting Donald Trump. Lately the network has been mostly avoiding discussion of the Iran debacle. Fox largely ignored the report of a Russian oligarch funding Don Jr.’s wedding. It didn’t appear to cover Karl Rove’s highly newsworthy warning about racism in the GOP. Meanwhile, a new Fox poll just delivered crushing news to Trump and the GOP: It finds that 63% say Trump made the economy worse; Democrats are substantially leading the GOP on most major issues and in the generic ballot; Democrats are benefiting from a...

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...

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 Democ...

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. Ye...

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 spee...

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 Ingr...

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 Rep...

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...

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 fea...

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...

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 ...

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 a...