Let's start with some good news today, shall we?

Donald Trump's second-term honeymoon phase now seems to officially be over. As new polling continues to roll in (in advance of his 100-day mark next week), it seems to all be telling pretty much the same story. Trump is now in a neck-and-neck race for "fastest slide into disapproval ever" -- with himself. Only one other president in modern times has seen his job approval numbers with the public go underwater this fast, and his name was also Donald Trump (in his first term). It depends on the poll, but in some he's already worse than he was at this point in 2017. No other president was even in negative territory at this point, it bears mentioning.

When you dive into the details, it gets even worse for Trump. He's down on job approval, in poll after poll. When you average them together, he's down anywhere from six to eight points. He's even down by 11 points in a poll from Fox News -- that's how bad things have gotten. He's now even registering underwater in polling on immigration, which was seen as his strongest point during the campaign (more on this in a moment...).

Trump's worst numbers are on the other subject he was seen as strong on during the campaign: the economy. He's underwater by an average of almost 12 points, and that Fox poll had him down 18 points on the issue. On inflation, it's even worse. If you count up just the polls since Trump's "Liberation Day" tariff announcement, he's down by an average of over 19 points -- and that Fox poll shows him down a whopping 26 points on the issue. When asked directly about tariffs, the news is the worst of all for Trump:

Overall, 64 percent of Americans disapprove of the president's efforts to raise import taxes, compared with 34 percent who approve, according to the poll conducted over the past week. The findings show that tariffs are one of the least popular issues so far in Trump's presidency.

Opposition has been rising among households, businesses and investors to Trump's newest tariffs, which include a 10 percent duty on all imports and up to 145 percent on Chinese goods. At the same time, consumers and business owners say they're feeling increasingly downbeat about the economy, and economists are warning that a recession is more likely this year. The University of Michigan Survey of Consumers reported Friday that consumer sentiment fell for the fourth straight month in April, with Americans expecting prices to rise 6.5 percent in the next year, the highest since 1981.

Meanwhile, the value of the U.S. dollar and the stock market have both fallen sharply this year, with the S&P 500 this month posting its largest four-day loss on record, amid fears of a growing trade war.

Things aren't exactly about to get any better for Trump either. Three CEOs visited him this Monday and informed him of the grim fact that if he didn't back down on his insanely-high tariffs on China, their stores (Target, Walmart, and Home Depot) would soon be on the evening news in a big way:

"The big box CEOs flat out told him the prices aren't going up, they're steady right now, but they will go up," an administration official familiar with the meeting told Axios. "And this wasn't about food. But he was told that shelves will be empty."

According to a separate official briefed on the meeting, Trump was told that if he doesn't change course, the impact could be noticeable in as little as two weeks.

Since then, Trump has been desperately trying to bluster on the China subject, but China is simply not playing ball. Trump keeps saying he's in trade negotiations with China (or even that the Chinese leader Xi has called him up on the phone), while China politely calls him a liar and says there are no negotiations taking place, period.

This means within a very short time frame ("as little as two weeks"), Trump is going to have to blink by unilaterally reducing his 145 percent tariff on China, or watch news stories of empty shelves at the big stores every single night on television. What do you think that's going to do to his public opinion polling?

Trump already blinked in a big way this week, after his tantrum against the chair of the Federal Reserve tanked the stock market (again) on Monday. Trump then got a talking-to from his aides and then had to pretend that he had never threatened to fire Jerome Powell and that the media was responsible (for, you know, reporting Trump's own words).

Also on deck for some negative press is the White House budget proposal, details of which are already leaking. This will likely be publicly released next week, which should provide a bonanza of opportunities for Democrats to highlight the changes Trump wants to make and how they will affect Americans everywhere. It will be a "target-rich environment," as the military likes to say:

The Trump administration, which has made clear that it aims to slash government spending, is preparing to unveil a budget proposal as soon as next week that includes draconian cuts that would entirely eliminate some federal programs and fray the nation's social safety net.

The proposed budget for the 2026 fiscal year would cut billions of dollars from programs that support child care, health research, education, housing assistance, community development and the elderly, according to preliminary documents reviewed by The New York Times. The proposal, which is being finalized by the White House's Office of Management and Budget, also targets longstanding initiatives that have been prized by Democrats and that Republicans view as "woke" or wasteful spending.

. . .

Among the most prominent programs that could be eliminated is Head Start, which provides early education and child care for some of the nation's poorest children.

Documents reviewed by The Times show the White House is considering a $12.2 billion cut, which would wipe out the program. The budget document says Head Start uses a "radical" curriculum and gives preference to illegal immigrants. A description of the program also criticizes it for diversity, equity and inclusion programming and the use of resources that encourage toddlers to welcome children and families with different sexual orientations.

Head Start -- and a multitude of other programs that will be getting the budget axe -- are not programs that only help Democratic voters, it is worth pointing out. Plenty of people in deep red states also get these benefits. As Democrats will soon also be pointing out, hopefully.

The budgetary pain is already manifesting itself. Here's a story that flew under most people's radar this week:

[Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders's] relationship with Trump is now being tested after devastating storms swept through Arkansas in March, damaging hundreds of homes. The state badly needs aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to recover, Sanders has said.

FEMA denied a request for emergency aid after the March tornadoes, which Sanders appealed last week. On Monday, Arkansas's congressional delegation joined her in lobbying the White House for assistance, a rare instance of pushback against the president from Republican officials who are typically staunch supporters.

Can't wait to see how this all plays out during this year's hurricane season, eh?

This is all on top of all the other assorted chaos that's been happening. Here is the best roundup of it all from the past week (the full article goes on at even greater length, we should mention):

The International Monetary Fund reduced growth forecasts for the United States to just 1.8 percent this year, down from 2.8 percent last year, in large part because of Trump's trade war. After saying it would reach 90 trade deals in 90 days, the administration has yet to negotiate even one. The CEOs of Walmart, Target and Home Depot warned the president that his tariffs would lead to empty shelves, as Axios first reported -- part of what caused Trump's latest surrender on China. Markets were pleased, but Americans have been deeply shaken. A Gallup poll found a record number of people saying their personal financial situation is deteriorating. A Reuters/Ipsos poll found only 37 percent of Americans approve of Trump's handling of the economy, lower than it ever was during his first term. Fox News found that Trump is lower in public esteem than any other president has been at the 100-day mark in more than a quarter-century.

Trump's cruelty, by contrast, exceeds that of all others. The Gothamist, a publication of New York Public Radio, carried a heartbreaking account this week of migrant children at shelters in New York facing an immigration judge alone because the Trump administration has cut off the funding that provides them with lawyers. The judge explained why the United States wants to deport a group that "included a 7-year-old boy, wearing a shirt emblazoned with a pizza cartoon, who spun a toy windmill." The Gothamist report went on: "There was an 8-year-old girl and her 4-year-old sister, in a tie-dye shirt, who squeezed a pink plushy toy and stuffed it into her sleeve. None of the children were accompanied by parents or attorneys, only shelter workers who helped them log on to the hearing."

In foreign affairs, Trump is proposing the most odious appeasement in Europe since Neville Chamberlain abandoned the Sudetenland. He is demanding Ukraine surrender the 20 percent of its country, including Crimea, that Vladimir Putin has seized, and abandon any hope of joining NATO. When Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky understandably protested, Trump dismissed him as a man with "no cards to play." Putin continues some of his most savage attacks of the war (Russian strikes on Kyiv early Thursday killed at least 12 people and wounded about 90 others) in expectation that Trump will force Ukraine to give up even more. "Vladimir, STOP!" Trump pleaded in a Truth Social post on Thursday morning. (Trump simultaneously resumed his attacks on our former friend and ally Canada, saying it "would cease to exist" as a country without U.S. support.)

. . .

Th[e] largely illegal destruction of federal functions continues to pile up casualties and proposed casualties: Food-safety inspections. Efforts to make infant formula safer. Milk testing. Weather balloons. Monitoring of IVF treatment safety. Data on maternal health. The administration has even tried to sell off the Montgomery, Alabama bus station where Freedom Riders were attacked in 1961; it now houses the Freedom Rides Museum. Republican Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia proposed a plan that would sharply cut what the federal government spends on Medicaid. Happily, after a disastrous quarter for Tesla (net income fell 71 percent, largely because of its CEO's antics), Musk said he would "significantly" reduce his time spent on his government work, calling the cost-slashing effort "mostly done." His boss is apparently moving on. "He was a tremendous help," Trump said on Wednesday, in an unmistakable shift to the past tense.

Poor Elon. It seems his car company has recently had (we can't resist) some sort of metaphorical chainsaw taken to it. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, eh?

The silver lining in this tsunami of bad news is that the weaker Trump gets politically, the more vulnerable he becomes. Public approval for Trump is already tanking, and the more Democrats show some leadership in resisting it all the lower Trump's numbers are going to go. There's already a very strong spirit of resistance out there (even if the news media hasn't been adequately covering it), as shown by another nationwide series of rallies last weekend. People are angry about the state of things, and they are looking for politicians who show the same level of outrage as they do.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on the legal battles being waged over Trump "disappearing" people by whisking them away to foreign prisons to serve indeterminate sentences without being convicted of any crime whatsoever. Last week, in the middle of the night, the Supreme Court granted an emergency stay which ordered the Trump administration to stop flying people out of the country before they had been given an adequate chance to make their case in a courtroom, in front of an American judge.

The Supreme Court isn't the only court Trump has been getting smacked down by either. In case after case after case (after case after case after case after case after case -- and that's just one week's worth of adverse rulings, mind you), judges -- many of them appointed by Republicans, mind you -- are ruling against Trump's lawless behavior. And now apparently (this news broke while we were writing all of this) the F.B.I. has arrested a judge in retaliation for doing something Trump didn't like. So it looks like this is all going to get a lot worse before it gets better.

Can't wait to see what the next 100 days has in store for us all....

 

This week, Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois announced he would not be seeking re-election next year.

Normally, this type of announcement wouldn't rise to the level of a Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week award, but we decided to give one to Durbin anyway, for three reasons.

First, Durbin's announcement came early in the midterm election cycle. He didn't hem and haw until the last minute. This is important, because it allows the race for his successor to unfold with plenty of time for the candidates to become known and to make their case to the public. When an announcement of this type happens only a few months before the primaries, it leads to a frantic sprint with little time to build up a campaign chest, and doing so is really nothing more than selfishness and an outsized ego. Durbin, to his credit, did not not take this route and instead announced with plenty of time for any candidate to jump in and make their case.

Second, Durbin is not some backbencher in the Senate. He is currently the Senate's minority whip, which makes him the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the chamber (second only to Minority Leader Chuck Schumer). Durbin is setting an admirable example of "passing the torch" here, by not endlessly clinging to power. Durbin always saw himself as eventually becoming the lead Democrat in the chamber, but he has voluntarily realized that this is simply never going to happen. This is an incredibly hard decision to make. So Durbin deserves full credit from walking away from his seat of power in Washington voluntarily.

And lastly, Dick Durbin is 80 years old. If he won another term, he would be 88 years old before that term was over (he was born in November). So Durbin is setting another example by stepping down -- the full version of that quote is actually: "passing the torch to a younger generation." Unlike some senators we could mention, who continue running for office no matter how old they get (to the point of being non compos mentis by the time they die in office), Durbin will retire and spend his remaining years watching someone younger take his seat. This is possibly the most impressive of all three of these reasons, since even if senators don't make it to a key leadership position it is still incredibly hard for them to voluntarily give up the power they have accrued in Washington for any reason. Durbin isn't going to hang around forever, instead he will graciously step aside and let someone else take his place.

For all three reasons, Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin is this weeks' Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week. Thank you for setting such a good example, Senator Durbin.

[Congratulate Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin on his Senate contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]

 

As we mentioned earlier, there are two ways to approach what Donald Trump is attempting to do with his mass deportation schemes. And this week, California Governor Gavin Newsom showed Democrats what the wrong way to do it was.

Newsom, up until very recently, has always had a political persona of a true political leader. He hasn't hesitated to get out in front on a contentious issue, even when a majority of the public hasn't been on his side. For instance, he famously was the first elected official in the entire country to issue marriage licenses to gay couples -- years before the Supreme Court's ruling made it legal nationwide.

But he is tarnishing his own political legacy, now that he is seriously eyeing a run for the White House. He made an argument this week that runs completely counter to his past leadership examples, and he is just flat-out wrong on it.

Newsom's point was that Donald Trump has (so far) been pretty popular on the immigration issue. It's been a real strong point for him, if not his strongest point. But rather than attack Trump in order to weaken him in the eyes of the public on his strongest point, Newsom advised just ignoring the whole thing in order to focus on issues Trump is weaker on (like the economy). Here's how he put it, speaking of the case of the immigrant wrongly sent to a hellhole of a prison in El Salvador:

"This is the distraction of the day -- the art of distraction," [California Governor Gavin] Newsom said. He noted the [Trump] administration describes this as an "80-20 issue" -- i.e., 80 percent of Americans are generally on its side -- and added: "They want to have this conversation. Don't get distracted by distractions. We're all perfect sheep."

This is nothing short of timidity in the face of wrongdoing. Or cowardice (take your choice). And coming from Newsom, it is unbelievably disappointing.

Newsom should know -- down in his bones -- that public opinion is not static. It is not set in stone. It can be changed by politicians who show leadership. One politician's strong point can be flipped to become a weak point when others make the case against it -- in a big way, sometimes.

This is especially true on Trump's deportation policies, because while the public generally does support deportation in a general and generic way, those opinions change when they are presented with individual cases. When the question becomes: "Should people who have been in America for more than 10 years without committing any crimes be deported?" or: "Should immigrants who are married to an American citizen or have American children be deported?" or: "Should people who came here before they were 18 be given a path to citizenship?" then public opinion shifts. And that's before we even get into the specifics of what Trump actually did. Because "disappearing" people with no due process at all is not popular at all.

Democrats -- like Senator Chris Van Hollen, who went to El Salvador and shamed their government into allowing him to meet with the immigrant at the heart of the case -- should instead frame the issue on their terms. The issue is whether people in America have fundamental rights guaranteed to them by our Constitution or not. The issue is due process, or the lack thereof. The issue isn't deportation in general, but specific cases of injustice that have impacted real people.

Recent polling has shown that the public is strongly on the side of judges, in any showdown between them and the president. Presidents should have to follow a judicial ruling even when they do not agree with it, period. Because that is the American system of government. One recent poll specifically asked about the most extreme example imaginable: "Suppose that the Supreme Court issues a ruling that the president disagrees with because he believes that the ruling would prevent him from protecting the country against terrorist attacks. Should the president follow the ruling or ignore the ruling?" Even in that case -- the ticking-time bomb scenario, one might call it -- a full 69 percent of the public said the president should follow the ruling. Other polling shows similar results. So the public is already on the side of following the law and not on the side of a president simply making the law up as he goes along.

Democratic pushback on Trump (combined with lots of media attention on the one case) is taking its toll as well. Trump's recent polling slump isn't just happening on the economy:

President Donald Trump's approval ratings on immigration, relatively strong in the early weeks of his second term, have dipped into negative territory, according to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll, a sign that his administration's hard-line and, in some cases, legally dubious enforcement tactics are losing public support.

A majority of Americans, 53 percent, disapprove of Trump's handling of immigration, with 46 percent approving, a reversal from February when half of the public voiced approval of his approach. Negative views have ticked up across partisan groups over the past two months, with 90 percent of Democrats, 56 percent of independents and 11 percent of Republicans now disapproving of the way the president has managed one of his core policy issues.

That is what an opposition party can do, if they tackle the issue directly and frame their case in the most effective way.

Which Newsom really should know, since he used to do so on a regular basis on multiple issues where public opinion wasn't yet in his corner.

So for his advice to other Democrats to just back down from this fight, we have to say that Gavin Newsom was easily the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week this week.

[Contact California Governor Gavin Newsom on his official contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]

 

Volume 793 (4/25/25)

We didn't have anywhere else to put it, so we have to begin with a story guaranteed to put a smile on everyone's face. Well, it's not so much a story as a series of heartwarming photos.

It seems it's not as hard to get into the White House Press Corps as you might think. In fact, all you have to do is be cute as a button and wander into it. The White House fence is probably the most heavily-guarded in the world, but occasionally things slip through. This week, a cat named Sophie did so, and wound up charming members of the press. Sophie's owner was contacted (Sophie was helpfully wearing a collar) and came to pick her up, but not before a whole bunch of adorable photos were snapped by press photographers. If you could use a smile this week, we strongly encourage you to check these photos out.

With that out of the way, let's move on to our talking points.

 

   From the beginning, we've been against tyranny

These first two are a continuation of what we were saying about Newsom, really. Here is how Democrats should properly frame the issue.

"This week, America marked the beginning the celebration of our 250th birthday, since it was the 250th anniversary of the first battles of the Revolution, at Lexington and Concord. We mark the actual birth of our nation from when the Declaration of Independence was created, of course. Our founding document was essentially a list of grievances Americans had with the King of England, which showed the world the reasons why we were declaring our independence from him. Two of these grievances are relevant to what is happening right now in America: 'For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury,' and: 'For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses.' Back then, our Founders considered such actions tyranny, and they stood strongly against such injustices."

 

   Due process for everyone

Or you can take a slightly different historical tack. Either one works, really.

"Or perhaps you prefer the words of the United States Constitution. After the Civil War, amendments were ratified which expanded the rights guaranteed in our Bill of Rights to clarify that all the evils of slavery should never again be allowed to happen in America. The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution lays out one very basic human right -- that the government cannot 'deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law,' as well as guaranteeing 'any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.' Republicans are now trying to fool everyone into thinking that the human rights in the Constitution are somehow only reserved for U.S. citizens, but that is simply not true. Note that it says any person and does not limit this (as it does elsewhere) to just American citizens. Due process is a fundamental right for everyone, which is why disappearing people to foreign prisons without any due process should be highly offensive to every American, period. We either all have rights, or we don't. You can't have it any other way because that's what our country stands for."

 

   100 days of chaos

Democrats need to hammer home how exhausting and incoherent this has all been, before Trump tries to take a victory lap next week.

"Has it really only been 100 days? Wow. It feels like it's been a lot longer than that! It's exhausting just trying to keep track of all the chaos coming from the White House these days. With the most incompetent presidential cabinet in American history, sometimes you just don't know where to look. What with the economy tanking right before our eyes to America retreating from the world stage and making both Russia and China stronger with every misstep, it's just one broken promise after another. I don't know how much more of this chaos this country can take -- if that was only 100 days' worth, I wonder how low Trump's approval rating will be in another 100 days."

 

   China yawns as Trump begs

It's pretty obvious who is going to win this "Who will lose face?" contest, at this point.

"Donald Trump thought he'd prove he was the biggest bully on the playground with his ill-conceived trade war. He thought slapping insanely-high tariffs on China would cause their leader to call him up and beg him for a trade deal. But he miscalculated in a big way. Now he's reduced to lying about whether China has even called the White House up (which they haven't). China is content to sit back and watch as things get more and more dire here. If the CEOs of Target, Walmart, and Home Depot are right, within just a few short weeks American consumers will start to be faced with empty shelves when they go shopping. Small businesses are collapsing daily, since they cannot survive Trump's trade war. Prices are going to skyrocket. In the end, it won't be China who begs for an end to the trade war, but Trump. He miscalculated badly, and the only question at this point is how long it's going to take before he admits it and reverses course."

 

   Trump doesn't care about you

These are just a few examples. There will be plenty of others soon, after the White House releases their budget proposal.

"Donald Trump doesn't care about you. He just doesn't. He talks big about how much he supports coal mining, and then he turns right around and spits in the miners' faces. He just cut two-thirds of the staff of the agency that provides free black lung testing, and will be shuttering dozens of their offices nationwide -- leaving only two of them to monitor more than 100 mines in Kentucky alone. Firefighters? Trump doesn't care about you either -- he's been firing people willy-nilly in the offices which provide health and safety services to the nation's firefighters. Even Sarah Huckabee Sanders -- who used to work in Trump's White House -- can't get FEMA to care about people devastated by tornadoes in her state. Trump wants to get rid of FEMA entirely -- which shows he doesn't care about any of the people who will be threatened by hurricanes or any other disaster that happens from now on. You're on your own, folks, because Donald Trump does not care about you at all."

 

   Don't forget to turn out the lights!

The chaos is so unrelenting we had to relegate this story to just a talking point (when in any normal situation it would be the top story of the week).

"Pete Hegseth took control of the Pentagon and hired his own handpicked team to help him run it. But in the past few weeks, they've all either been fired for no reason or just threw up their hands and quit. Meanwhile, the news broke that Hegseth hasn't just been sharing national security secrets with random journalists, but also his wife and other close friends and family members -- on an unsecured phone line. If anyone else in the military was responsible for such a serious breach of secrecy, they'd either be fired, lose their security clearance, or be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Hegseth's chief of staff just quit, and news reports are filled with stories of utter chaos and total meltdown. Things have gotten so bad Hegseth's own supporters are even calling on him to step down. At this point, it seems like there should be a memo on the bulletin board of Hegseth's office which reads: 'Will the last top aide to leave please turn out the lights?' Most of Trump's disastrous cabinet picks are incompetent, but to have this vacuum at the top of the nation's military is downright dangerous."

 

   Secure? Hardly.

This one's not quite as alarming as that last one, but it is funnier.

"Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem apparently can't even keep her own most valuable possessions secure. Noem just had her purse stolen in a restaurant, which seems like a pretty serious breach of security to me. In her handbag was: her passport, her departmental security badge, her driver's license, her medication, blank checks, and her apartment keys. Oh, and $3,000 cash as well. And we're entrusting the nation's security to this woman? I don't know about you, but that doesn't exactly fill me with a sense of security."

-- Chris Weigant

 

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground