Cooked lame duck! Ari on Trump's crash out as MAGA bolts

[0:00] We are reporting on Trump's crash. [0:02] The approval rating now cratering to 33 percent, an abysmal second-term low. [0:07] Long-time allies see that the ship is sinking. [0:10] Let's start right here. [0:11] Trump campaign vet Bannon admitting the GOP is facing these defeats. [0:16] Tucker Carlson has upended the White House his whole week with his new defection. [0:23] Defeat after defeat, now it's a crushing, now they've turned over the whole frickin' state to him. [0:29] It'll take us a decade to dig out of this. [0:31] I do think it's like a moment to wrestle with our own consciences. [0:37] You know, we'll be tormented by it for a long time. [0:42] A long time of torment. [0:43] I have more on both of those individuals coming up. [0:47] But I start there because the defections don't come in a vacuum. [0:50] They reflect an American electorate that is currently done with Trump and what he's doing in his second term. [0:57] The extremism, the economic failure, the rampant lying, [1:00] which some people on the right have dismissed when it was directed towards other people or other issues. [1:06] But now they view it as insult on top of injury. [1:09] In this case, economic and foreign policy injury. [1:13] There's a revolt afoot over Trump's failed economy, [1:16] over his choice to impose this effective war tax on gas. [1:21] Just 33% of Americans approve of this Trump economy now. [1:26] And I'm going to tell you something else. [1:27] Some people may not like it. [1:29] But one of those elite D.C. narratives has now been proven wrong again when you look at this Trump crash. [1:36] Because we have heard a lot of Republican apologists, [1:39] especially the elite kind of bubbled type of them in Washington, [1:43] but also a lot of D.C. media insiders talk about how Trump has this resilient base of support. [1:50] They talk about it like it's some sort of law of physics, [1:52] like it can't change and it's special to him. [1:56] And in many cases, that has actually served as a practical matter to exaggerate and hype [2:02] how popular Trump is or how much you have to deal with him. [2:05] He is president. [2:06] No one's saying you can ignore the entire presidency for a term. [2:09] But whether you think of him as a popular president who has leverage or a lame duck who's fading, [2:14] that's a big difference. [2:15] And that narrative that the Republican Party will just stand by him no matter what, [2:20] or as he likes to say, he could murder on Fifth Avenue and get away with it. [2:24] Uh-uh. [2:25] That's ending too. [2:27] Now a sizable third, one third of Republican voters disapprove of Trump. [2:34] After the months of inflation, the gas spike, this new war, [2:38] the rolling Epstein secrecy and Epstein debacle that stretched from late last year [2:43] into the beginning of this year. [2:46] And new reports say that Trump aides are sugarcoating the war problems. [2:50] They're afraid to tell him the truth. [2:51] That's part of the war policy planning problem right now. [2:55] And we have reporting on that. [2:56] We can get into that. [2:57] But that, I want to point out tonight, is a very stark and public contrast [3:03] to Tucker Carlson and these other MAGA voices who aren't just telling Trump the bad news, [3:09] not just going to him perhaps in private. [3:10] They have access to him and his aides and saying, hey, this isn't working. [3:14] This economy is bad. [3:15] This is what people are mad about. [3:16] No, they're going beyond that. [3:17] They're doing it in public, as we've just seen. [3:20] And that's driving the very media coverage that Trump cares about so much. [3:25] The combined polling crash, the defections, the Iran troubles. [3:27] All of this now has the right-leaning Drudge Report website likening Trump to Jimmy Carter, [3:38] whose term fell apart over a gas crisis and high prices and basically getting shown up [3:44] by Iran, what Drudge calls war confusion. [3:48] You know, Carter was a rare incumbent who lost after his first term, like Trump. [3:54] Now, the second term of Trump was supposed to redeem him as a kind of a leader [3:57] or maybe a more serious person than his early foibles. [4:00] And yet here he is tonight, according to Drudge and a lot of other indicators, [4:05] saddled with Carter problems of his own making and Carter-level polling [4:09] and Carter failures on policy from the economy to Iran. [4:15] History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes, Mark Twain observed. [4:20] But when it comes to Jimmy Carter, these are some rhymes most Americans would rather do without. [4:25] Meanwhile, the Republican bid to try to reshape future elections in Virginia just failed. [4:33] And here's a little more from what I showed you a preview of, [4:35] the Steve Bannon rant as he took in that news today, going at Republicans. [4:42] Defeat after defeat, now it's a crushing, now they turned over the whole frickin' state to them. [4:48] It'll take us a decade to dig out of this. [4:50] You're damn right you're going to lose the Senate because you've given nothing for people to work for. [4:54] And right now, folks, take your number two pencil out and write this down. [4:58] We ain't going to be in power. [5:01] You're going to lose the Senate. [5:02] We ain't going to be in power. [5:03] Get your number two pencil for those who don't just type notes on your own iPhone. [5:08] Now, what does Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson and Alex Jones all have in common? [5:13] Remember what they do now. [5:15] They have their own dedicated audiences online, [5:18] and they apparently would rather meet those audiences where they are [5:22] with at a minimum Trump skepticism, if not outright Trump opposition. [5:26] They'd rather do that now than wait around and look like out-of-touch MAGA elite apologists [5:34] when this November reckoning comes. [5:37] I'm not telling you what's going to happen in the November midterms. [5:39] I don't actually do that. [5:41] I'm telling you, though, what they appear to think is going to happen. [5:45] And that's why this is not just about anyone's opinion or voice. [5:50] It includes that, but also includes what they're bracing for. [5:54] Now, the anger against Trump around the nation is already reaching Capitol Hill [5:58] long before any midterm votes are cast. [5:59] Today, five different Trump cabinet officials you see across the board here. [6:04] There is some work that sometimes gets done in Congress. [6:07] Five different officials showing up and facing some members of Congress [6:11] who appear to channel the concerns of this angry anti-Trump public. [6:19] How fast will the price of gasoline come down? [6:22] Again, that is path dependent on when the war and the conflict end. [6:27] Seven million people losing their health insurance because of the Trump administration actions. [6:34] That's not debatable. [6:35] There's nobody who is legally enrolled in Medicaid who is losing coverage. [6:40] That is just not true. [6:41] Will you guarantee that gas will go back to $3 again before the end of the year? [6:47] No one can offer guarantees about the future. [6:50] No, they can't. [6:52] And on it went like that. [6:54] Now, Americans blame Trump for the higher gas prices. [6:56] They can see that direct result from starting the war. [6:59] Financial outlets have covered the Trump tax for weeks. [7:02] Here's one headline. [7:03] This is from a couple weeks ago. [7:04] We picked that on purpose to note how this has been the state of play. [7:09] We've noted that it's like a war tax on this very program. [7:12] Today, Senate Democrats are hammering this point with the cumulative numbers. [7:16] If you add up the tab, all in, American families have paid $16 billion more. [7:24] That's not $16 billion. [7:25] That's $16 billion extra. [7:27] That's the scale of the tax in a very short period of time because of Trump's war. [7:33] It's the economy, stupid. [7:35] Or it's the stupid war hurting the economy, or however you put it. [7:38] As you're about to see, people are upset with Trump's war economy. [7:43] What would you grade the economy right now? [7:49] Definitely a D. [7:51] Is there an F up there? [7:52] I just really don't think I have faith in this administration. [7:57] It's not the greatest economy in the history of the country. [8:00] It's not blowing out of the water. [8:01] People are struggling. [8:04] The term right now, it sucks. [8:07] There's hope, but it's not for everybody. [8:09] It's difficult. [8:10] With him, he doesn't have no plan. [8:12] Everything just keeps going up and up. [8:14] He's gaslighting us or delusional. [8:16] I don't know what it is. [8:16] Well, it's not great and not our best time as a country. [8:23] Yeah, the gas is expensive. [8:28] Gaslighting people about the gas being expensive doesn't work. [8:31] And those are folks just filling up the tank and going about their day. [8:36] They're not professional politicians. [8:37] That's why we do these reported interviews sometimes. [8:39] You just check in. [8:41] It anecdotally overlaps with the polling I showed you. [8:45] Why am I mentioning that as the top story tonight in concert with these other developments? [8:49] Because when you see Trump backers like Tucker Carlson jump ship after so many years of support, [8:58] and remember, Tucker broke the journalistic rules and limits from his former outlet employers [9:02] like Fox and CNN to go directly campaign for Trump. [9:06] He did it at the convention. [9:08] He did it again in the homestretch at that controversial MSG rally in New York. [9:13] So when you see him flip now, that was not that long ago, [9:17] and you see people revolting before the midterms, [9:19] and you see the economy doing what it's doing, [9:22] it is pretty clear that Tucker Carlson, [9:25] who once privately confided in someone that he hated Trump, [9:30] a text I mentioned this week that came out in a lawsuit, [9:33] then went back to supporting Trump, and then went back, [9:37] he is a self-fact check. [9:39] He is a liar. [9:41] I can only say that rarely when we have the proof. [9:43] But when you have someone's private text like a diary, [9:46] and them contradicting themselves, [9:47] you can actually document how he lied to cozy up to Trump when he was up, [9:52] and now he's lying about why he's ditching Trump when he's out. [9:55] But the big political point is, he's out. [9:59] Tucker and these other folks, they're not following some sort of long, [10:03] clear ideological plan where, oh, if you do this on the war, [10:07] that's going to break it. [10:08] No, they are following their own audience and the public [10:12] and trying to get ahead of what is already the lowest approval of Trump's second term. [10:18] Trump's aides may have him high on his own supply. [10:20] Top MAGA leaders have taken a different route. [10:24] They are planning their own futures as a future without Trump. [10:29] And that makes you wonder, if it's this bad now, [10:34] how bad do they think it's going to get for Trump and Republicans?