Tag: trump approval ratings
Will Firing More Cabinet Members Improve Trump's Sagging Approval Numbers?

Will Firing More Cabinet Members Improve Trump's Sagging Approval Numbers?

A Reuters report on Saturday claimed President Donald Trump was weighing a “reset” in his administration to arrest what he considered “unfair” media coverage over his Iran fiasco. That one sentence undersells just how unhinged this is.

U.S. President Donald Trump is considering a broader cabinet shake-up in the wake of Attorney General Pam Bondi's removal this week, as he grows increasingly frustrated with the political fallout from the war with Iran, five people familiar with internal White House discussions said.

Of course he’s frustrated. He created this mess himself, and this time he can’t declare bankruptcy, stiff his creditors, or sic lawyers on the problem until it disappears. He promised “no wars,” and now he owns one. There’s no easy exit.

Any potential reshuffling could serve as a reset for the White House as it confronts a politically challenging stretch: The five-week-old war has driven up gas prices, dragged down Trump's approval ratings and intensified anxiety about the consequences for Republicans heading into November's midterm elections.

That’s the reality. Republicans tied themselves to Trump, and now they’re stuck with the consequences. The problem is the rest of the country and the world is stuck with him, too.

Some allies said his televised speech to the nation on Wednesday - which one senior White House official described as an attempt to project a sense of control and confidence about the direction of the war - fell flat, adding to the sense that changes in messaging or personnel were needed.

There was never a scenario where another rambling Trump speech was going to reassure anyone. If anything, it was always going to make things worse. People are done with him. They gave him a second chance, and he’s screwed it up beyond recognition. No one outside the MAGA deplorables is giving him the benefit of the doubt, ever again.

Several of the sources said Tulsi Gabbard, Trump's director of national intelligence, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are among those potentially on the chopping block, after Trump ousted Bondi and Homeland Security ⁠Secretary Kristi Noem in recent weeks.Trump has in recent months expressed displeasure with Gabbard, said one senior White House official. Another source with direct knowledge of the matter said Trump had asked allies about their thoughts on potential replacements for his intelligence chief

Gabbard is awful, but funny how his immediate hit list is all the women in his Cabinet. That’s not a coincidence.

The same report notes that Trump himself isn’t particularly bothered by Lutnick. The discomfort is coming from others in his orbit over Lutnick’s ties to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump’s own history there speaks for itself.

Trump could ultimately decide, however, not to make any changes to his administration's senior ranks. Several others close to Trump have said the ⁠president is reluctant to overhaul his cabinet too frequently, after recurrent staffing changes during his first term dominated headlines and created the impression of chaos at the White House.

Nothing about this is about governing. He assembled a Cabinet of loyalists with little regard for competence, and now that his administration is trapped in a public opinion death spiral, his instinct is to reshuffle the deck rather than change course. The people he’s thinking about firing didn’t create the underlying problem.

Still, after his disappointing speech on Wednesday, doing nothing could be just as politically dangerous as making a significant change that, for better or for worse, would dominate news headlines, one White House official said.

Actually, doing nothing for the next three years would quite literally be the best political move Trump could do.

Trump worked with his speechwriting team and top advisers on this week's prime-time address, one official said, after aides had urged him for weeks to speak directly to the nation about the U.S. role in Iran [...]"The speech did not accomplish what it was supposed to," the official said, adding that while Trump's core supporters still backed him on the war, they are broadly under economic strain.

Even that framing misses the point. The issue isn’t presentation. It’s the substance.

Two ⁠of the White House officials said Trump is extremely frustrated with what he perceives to be unfair media coverage of the war in Iran, and he has made clear to his team he wants more positive news accounts. He has not indicated, however, that he is interested in adjusting his own messaging strategy.

There is no “messaging strategy” to adjust. The behavior is the problem. Demanding better coverage while continuing the same actions that caused the backlash is not a plan.

If Trump wants more positive news coverage, there is one obvious option: step aside.

Still, the sources said the possibility of a shake-up had grown decidedly more serious in recent weeks. One senior White House source said Trump wants to make any big changes now, well ahead of the midterms.

Quite literally every single one of his Cabinet members deserves to be fired, and every single possible replacement would look the same: loyalists first, competence optional.

We are stuck in a political nightmare. The only silver lining is that Trump, himself, is as well.

Markos Moulitsas is founder and editor of the blogging website Daily Kos and author of three books.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos

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

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