Tag: trump approval ratings
Laura Ingraham

Fox News' United Front Supporting Trump's Iran War May Be Breaking Down

Four weeks after President Donald Trump launched a poorly conceived war of choice against Iran, the lockstep support for the conflict that has characterized coverage from Fox News’ star hosts is beginning to fray. The power struggle is significant — it is not an exaggeration to suggest the course of the war might hinge on which Fox shows the president is watching.

Trump is clearly approaching a decision point over whether to further escalate the war. U.S. and Israeli forces have done a lot of damage to Iranian military targets, but its regime is intact, still controls its stockpiles of enriched uranium, and has closed the Strait of Hormuz, threatening the global trade in oil, natural gas, and fertilizer. The Pentagon is sending thousands of troops to the region and reportedly prepping options for a “final blow” — some of which would involve deploying U.S. forces on Iranian soil.

When Trump is considering policy options, he often takes guidance from his loyal propagandists at Fox. This Fox-Trump feedback loop has in recent months played a role in the president’s decisions to send White House border czar Tom Homan to oversee immigration enforcement in Minnesota; prioritize the SAVE Act over all other legislation; order the deployment of ICE agents to airports; and start the war against Iran.

Against that backdrop, Fox News host Laura Ingraham warned on Wednesday’s show that further U.S. action could produce devastating unintended consequences and suggested that Trump should refocus his attention on the domestic economy and political situation.

“Iran knows it cannot win militarily, so it's using the leverage it has by prolonging the conflict,” she said during her monologue at the top of the show. “Now, what do they want to do? They want to inflict maximum economic pain on the region, on the U.S., [on] the global economy as much as possible until they think Trump relents. But the White House doesn't seem to be blinking.”

The host then aired a clip of White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt warning at her press briefing that day that “President Trump does not bluff, and he is prepared to unleash hell” against Iran.

Ingraham did not seem impressed by Leavitt’s rhetoric.

“Well, the problem is obviously unleashing hell means destroying infrastructure, which itself causes a series of cascading problems for the region, including maybe outside the region — political problems for the president in a midterm election year,” she said.

Her air of skepticism continued throughout the show.

While interviewing Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO), she noted Pentagon reports of thousands of successful missions but commented, “I mean, this is a devastating blow, yet you know, we're still there.”

“It's not even a month old, obviously,” she continued, before asking, “But are you concerned about the public and people? Again, very short attention spans, very impatient for victory, as is President Trump, I might add. But in an election year, it's easy to say politics don't matter, but at some point politics do come into play.”

And in a third segment, she highlighted the disastrous polling on the Iran war, commenting, “It looks like people are pretty impatient. The American people are sending a message to President Trump that it's time to put the focus back on the home front.”

Ingraham is inching toward the type of dissent that has been virtually absent from Fox’s coverage of the war, even as the broader right-wing media has split. Her colleagues have played key roles in convincing Trump to attack in the first place and are pushing for risky escalations. Ingraham herself briefly quibbled with Trump’s handling of an apparent U.S. strike that leveled an Iranian school, killing scores of children, but had supported the war itself, which she declared three weeks ago that Trump had already won.

But if Ingraham is getting cold feet and trying to convince Trump not to escalate a war the public has soured on, she remains an outlier at the network. Indeed, if the president tuned in for the two hours following Ingraham’s program, he saw her prime-time colleagues Jesse Watters and Sean Hannity argue not only that the war is going well and that Trump will inevitably lead the U.S. to victory, but that anyone who disagrees must want America to lose the war because they hate the president.

Watters began his show with a 10-minute monologue whose thesis was that “the Iranian regime is losing leverage fast as we continue to carry out thousands of sorties over enemy airspace.” After detailing various tactical victories, he touted a potential escalation.

“[President] 47 could be eyeing a knockout — Iran's crown jewel, Kharg Island,” he said. “The Republican Guard has been preparing for battle, laying mines, booby trapping, loading up on Stingers, but retired top brass says our military is ready to shock and seize the terrain by air, by sea. We don't know if it's going to happen, but if it does happen, the Iranians won't know it's coming.”

“Iran looks like this is their last gasp, but some people would rather America lose the war because they hate Trump,” Watters concluded. “So far, this is the cleanest, most surgical and one-sided operation in American military history. Now, anything could happen, war is hell, it's unpredictable, but people in the know in Washington think we're about to close it out with a pretty big blow.”

Hannity, in his opening monologue, likewise declared: “Many on the left are now rooting for America to lose. Others seem to be hoping for another Vietnam-style quagmire. Why? Because Democrats care more about their political ambition rather than the future, safety, and security of your children and your grandchildren.”

“But tonight, President Trump is ignoring all the hysteria and pushing for peace one way or the other,” he continued. “If Iran's obliterated regime will not agree to a lasting agreement, this president has pledged he will continue to decimate their resolve through force, but that's really going to be up to them. They might unleash hell, otherwise.”

After airing a clip from Leavitt’s press briefing, Hannity added, “The message from President Trump is clear: Work with the U.S. or you will be killed.”

To which Ingraham might reply — what if killing them creates “cascading problems for the region”? As of yet, Watters and Hannity aren’t expressing any such concerns. And who the president is watching may determine the shape of things to come.

Trump Johnson

Amid Their Redistricting Wreckage, Trump And Johnson Reject Obvious Solution

Republicans across the country, spurred by President Donald Trump and encouraged by House Speaker Mike Johnson, are pushing hard to redraw as many congressional districts as possible in order to maintain their House majority after next year’s midterm elections.

They know that losing the majority would cost them everything they’ve built their power around. They could no longer steer investigations designed to protect Trump, bottle up Democratic legislation, or jam extremist messaging bills onto the floor. They’d lose the committee gavels they’ve used to hound political enemies, the messaging platform they rely on to launder right-wing conspiracies, and the institutional leverage to slow-walk or sabotage even the most basic functions of government.

So far, Trump’s efforts have been a bust, despite the terrible political damage he has done to the tradition of once-a-decade redistricting.That process, carried out shortly after the 2020 census, was supposed to create a stable map voters could rely on for 10 years, providing them a predictable landscape they could use to understand who represents them. The process had long acted as guardrail against nonstop map-shopping every time a party felt insecure about the next election.

Instead, Trump’s meddling has turned redistricting into a perpetual power-grab, eroding public trust and encouraging every state to treat its map as a live grenade rather than a settled civic obligation.

Not only have Democrats engaged in retaliatory efforts that will likely leave things roughly where they began, but also a recent legal decision means Republicans’ attempt to gain an extra five seats in Texas may end up reversed, leaving Republicans further behind than where they started.

Trump and Johnson have never hidden the motive behind their effort. One recalcitrant Republican state legislator in Indiana, where the state GOP is warring over whether to redraw the state’s map, said he heard from Johnson, who “just talked about the importance of the House majority.”

Of course, the majority is important to Johnson and Trump. But it’s striking that neither man shows interest in the one thing that would help protect their party’s majority: doing popular stuff.

They could try governing in a way that aligns with what most Americans want, but that would require them abandoning their culture-war extremism, anti-democratic impulses, and Trump-first loyalty—all of which define the modern GOP. Johnson could have his chamber show up to work instead of adjourning for weeks to protect Trump from the release of the government’s files on accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

But rather than change their message, their agenda, or their behavior that is repelling voters, they’ve chosen to change the maps. And even that doesn’t seem to be working out the way they hoped.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

Trump crypto

Lame Duck Trump Isn't Fretting Over Polls -- He's Too Busy Cashing Out

Donald Trump's approval numbers continue to crater. Even Republicans have cooled on the president's performance. But the president shows no sign of noticing, nor is he changing his ways. Even his gaslighting has gone wan. He's failed to make Americans believe that prices are going down when they're clearly not.

What gives? Why isn't he trying to win back the public's love? Perhaps because he no longer cares. The only infrastructure he seems interested in building is his family fortune.

Trump charmed farmers into supporting him twice. He's bankrupting them with his trade-war antics. Many farmers have finally turned on him, but so what? Trump's not running again. He no longer needs their affection or their votes.

This ability to seduce then abandon goes way back. In 1995, Trump was a near-broke developer whose Atlantic City casinos were going under. He needed suckers to bail him out and found them through an initial public offering of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts stock. Rubes buying into his spinner-of-gold act poured $140 million into his empty coffers. In 2004, burdened by debt and never turning a profit, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts filed for bankruptcy. For every $10 that his marks invested at that stock sale, they had $1 left.

"People don't understand this company" was his explanation.

The presidency offered new and powerful tools to get people to hand over their money. Days after returning to office, Trump's regulators dropped the fraud case against crypto entrepreneur Justin Sun. The Chinese-born speculator, target of an FBI investigation, fixed his problem by "investing" more than $40 million on $TRUMP coins — a crypto meme coin with no fundamental value.

Last month, Trump pardoned Changpeng Zhao. The Chinese-born Canadian had spent four months in prison for failing to prevent his crypto exchange, Binance, from laundering money. Zhao made his woes go away by having Binance facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial stablecoin. World Liberty was founded by Trump's sons, Eric and Donald Jr.

Asked about the pardon of Zhao, Trump said, "I don't know who he is."

By June, Trump and family had already taken in about $1 billion in crypto ventures alone, according to Forbes' calculations. That included profits from $100 million of World Liberty cryptocurrency tokens that a murky entity based in the United Arab Emirates said it was buying.

You enrich me and I'll get you off whatever hook you're hanging from. How better to embolden financial lawbreakers than a president saying, in effect, I've got your back — for a fee?

Being blatant about corruption is part of the mob boss' business model. Trump is telling those needing government favors that he's not shy about granting them, appearances be damned. Not only does he hand out pardons without blushing, he's been firing the regulators whose job it was to police wrongdoing.

Trump's agenda for a second term appears to be not giving a damn. He doesn't even care about the Republican Party, which just felt the sting of an unhappy electorate. Trump probably figures that Democrats will soon take control of at least the House in the midterms, so he might as well use the months left with a servile Republican Congress to increase his fortune.

He could also turn attention freed from the nation's concerns to immortalizing himself. Start by leveling an entire wing of the White House for a banquet hall that administration officials are already calling "The President Donald J. Trump Ballroom."

Asked about the naming, Trump said, "I won't get into that now."

It hardly needs mentioning that rich donors needing inside deals are paying for the ballroom.

Trump does care about numbers, but his job approval doesn't seem to be among them.

Froma Harrop is an award winning journalist who covers politics, economics and culture. She has worked on the Reuters business desk, edited economics reports for The New York Times News Service and served on the Providence Journal editorial board.

Reprinted with permission from Creators.


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