The DSR Network

Donald Trump’s approval rating just hit an abysmal low of 33-64 in Reuters polling. That’s only one survey, but Trump also just hit a new low of 37-59 in New York Times polling averages, which suggests he’s likely in the mid-30s and may be trending toward the Reuters number. This comes as Democrats appear to have flipped a state legislative district in western Pennsylvania that Trump won in 2024 by 18 points. Though that race hasn’t been called yet, either way it’s an 18-point shift, a very good omen. Meanwhile, a CNN analysis finds Trump badly bleeding Hispanic men, a demographic he carried in 2024, another sign his coalition is imploding. We talked about all of it with Michael Cohen, author of a new piece on GOP extremism for his Substack, Truth and Consequences. We discuss what the Pennsylvania swing portends, why a Democratic Senate majority is now at least possible, why Trump losing Latinos is a huge deal, and what it means that Democrats are voting as if Trump is on the ballot this fall.

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On the DSR Daily for Wednesday, we discuss Angie Nixon’s shocking primary win in Florida, Trump pausing new tariffs on Canada, Israeli strikes on a Syrian air base, and more. 

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The White House and MAGA exploded in fury after Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff pointed out during a speech that Donald Trump loves to “travel with Natalie” on the presidential jet. “Natalie,” of course, is Natalie Harp, the young aide whom Trump relies on heavily for emotional support and basically controls information flows to him. Yet despite all the fake MAGA outrage, Semafor reports that in fact, Trump’s own aides are “unnerved” by their closeness. That shows Ossoff is forcing a much-needed conversation over Trump’s sunsetting and the informational bubble he resides in daily. We talked to Paul Waldman, who wrote about this saga on his Substack, The Cross Section. We discuss how Ossoff stripped bare the realities of Trump’s sunsetting, why this is what actually got MAGA so furious, why this shows Democrats should make the midterms about Trump, and what it all says about how Democrats should fight the information wars.

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Why can’t the US and China just get along when it comes to artificial intelligence? As the two nations jockey for an edge in AI, President’s Trump and Xi prepare for a consequential summit where the tech race may play a bigger role than ever. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Scott Singer joins David Rothkopf to discuss why in the race for AI dominance between China the US, the best way to win might just be to work together.

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On the DSR Daily for Tuesday, we break down the Disney lawsuit against the Trump administration, Trump’s threats against Oman, the DHS investigating its critics, and more. 

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The 60-day deadline for a deal between Donald Trump and Iran has passed, and he’s in a lather over it. First Trump raged to Fox News of his displeasure with Oman’s negotiations with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz. “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s--t out of them,” he fumed nonsensically. Then, under questioning over foreign policy, he erupted at a female journalist, repeatedly instructing her to “be quiet, be quiet, be quiet” in a vile and abusive tone. Meanwhile, officials leaked their pessimism about the war to Politico, saying things like “we never should have started this war” and revealingly admitting they have no idea what “winning” over Iran even means anymore. Translation: He lost. We talked to former Defense Department official Ariane Tabatabi. She explains the current standoff, why Trump’s rage at Oman is so absurd, how his megalomaniacal belief in his own limitless strength and power has backfired, and what might happen if Iran drags this out through the midterms. 

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On the DSR Daily for Monday, we break down Trump’s decision to reduce joint exercises with South Korea, the DOJ’s efforts to exert more control over voter rolls, Jared Kushner’s new push for a ceasefire in Israel, and more. 

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At a rally the other day, Donald Trump handed Democrats the perfect soundbite. “For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline,” Trump seethed, “just remember” it’s to deprive Iran of a nuclear weapon. He said higher prices are “okay,” and that “I will never apologize.” Trump’s angry sneering tone on the words “tiny little bit more” projected deep contempt for all who dare object to hardship imposed on them by his needless war, and the moment produced harsh media coverage. Separately, Trump curtly brushed off concerns among military families over long deployments and bad conditions on the U.S.S. Lincoln. We talked about all this with MS NOW’s Steve Benen, author of an interesting piece on Trump’s refusal to ever admit error. We discuss how Trump’s lifelong penchant for faking expertise is catching up with him, how Democrats can exploit this new self-own, and why political conditions suddenly resemble those that brought down George W. Bush in his second term. 

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It’s time to change how we think about economics. It’s clear that the economic philosophies we’ve taken as gospel for decades are only helping those at the top while leaving the rest of us further behind in the dust. Entrepreneur and civic activist Nick Hanauer joins David Rothkopf to discuss his new booklet Markets Built for Humans  and why a paradigm shift in how we think about the economy can build a system that serves everyone. 

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On the DSR Daily Live for Friday, August 14th, Norm Ornstein joins us to discuss current vaccine lunacy, Iran’s state media mocking Trump, the Kennedy Center Board putting Trump’s name back on it, and more!

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Intriguingly, Fox News has lately been hitting Donald Trump with terrible polling news. In recent days, Fox has found Democrats slightly ahead in Senate races in Maine, Texas, and Iowa, and up by a lot in North Carolina. Critically, Trump’s own favorability numbers are very bad in all those states, even though he won three of them, two by double digits. In all four, his numbers among independents are shockingly awful. Meanwhile, on the Iran war—which is central to why his standing is cratering—Trump aides are privately feeding him hopium. The Atlantic reports that they’re showing him data on Iran’s economy, which supposedly illustrates that if he does nothing and bides his time, Iran will surrender any day now. Doing nothing is the smart play, sir! Yet as Democratic strategist Caitlin Legacki argues in this episode, Trump’s inaction on Iran is a big albatross for GOP Senate candidates. Legacki explains why Iran is central to the battle for the Senate, why those Fox polls should give Democrats grounds for cautious optimism, and what could still go wrong for them. 

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The Midterm elections are right around the corner, and things aren’t looking good for MAGA. Democratic enthusiasm is high and Trump’s approval is circling the drain, but it’s clear that MAGA is pulling out all the stops to tip the scales in their favor. Emma Janssen and Michael Tomasky from the New Republic join Rosa Brooks and David Rothkopf and share what Democrats must do to protect democracy and win big in November. 

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On the DSR Daily for Thursday, we discuss Karoline Leavitt leaving her position as Press Secretary, ICE getting taser gloves, the UK's special election, and more. 

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By now you’ve heard that when Donald Trump left the NATO summit in Turkey last month, he was clandestinely transferred from Air Force One to an alternative plane to avert a credible Iranian threat. It appears many of his cabinet members were left on Air Force One. Now new leaks make the story look darker: It turns out Trump brought several of the aides who are personally closest to him on the safe alternative flight. This, even as he left numerous journalists on the original plane, which effectively turned them into a decoy that might have been targeted. None were informed of the operation. It all perfectly captures Trump’s contempt for the media, so we talked to Margaret Sullivan, author of the excellent press-critiquing Substack “American Crisis.” She explains why this saga is so irregular, why the media faces a moment of uncommon challenges, and why journalists often won’t directly confront authoritarianism, even when it gravely threatens their own institution. 

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The times they are a-changin’. From Zohran Mamdani’s victory in New York to Abdul El-Sayed’s primary win in Michigan, it’s clear that progressive politics are more popular than ever and growing by the day. Yet many in the Democratic establishment can’t seem to get with the program. Host of the I’ve Had It podcast Jennifer Welch joins David Rothkopf to examine what makes these victories so meaningful and why it’s time for traditional Democrats to evolve and expand the tent.

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On the DSR Daily for Wednesday, we break down the results of Tuesday’s primaries, Trump confirming details of his Air Force One caper, a judge blocking a provision of Trump’s executive order targeting mail-in ballots, and more. 

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While interviewing Donald Trump, a MAGA media personality urged Trump to consider declaring a national emergency to seize control of our elecctions. Trump’s response was ugly. “Let me just say that stranger things have happened,” Trump said. “I’ll leave it at that.” In other words, Trump wants it understood that declaring a national emergency absolutely is being considered. This comes as Politico reports that Republicans are privately bracing to face Trump’s “wrath,” now that the Senate has gone on recess without passing the voter suppression legislation he wants. Republicans fear he’ll erupt at them anew over this in coming days. In short, Trump is intensifying his search for ways to rig the midterms or steal them outright. So we talked to Professor Rick Hasen, the author of the excellent Election Law Blog. He explains what’s wrong with Trump’s “national emergency” threat, how it signals genuine intent to delegitimize our elections, what election-theft options Trump has that really should worry us, and what ordinary voters can do—right now—to prepare for the worst. Listen to this episode here.

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Are we being too laissez-faire in our approach to artificial intelligence? Rarely has there been a technology so profoundly important, yet so concentrated in the hands of a few private citizens. "National security experts Ivo Daalder and Graham Allison join David Rothkopf to explore the terrifying implications of hands-off policymaking, and why—as with nuclear weapons—we probably shouldn’t leave private companies in charge of such explosive technology."

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On the DSR Daily for Tuesday, we discuss Trump's secret flight from Turkey, more Primary news, RFK Jr's new effort to upend vaccines, and more. 

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In a fascinating new analysis, CNN’s Harry Enten calculates that Donald Trump’s net approval on the economy is 33 points underwater. That’s a shocking 42-point swing from during the 2018 midterms, when Trump was in positive territory. On top of that, Enten notes that in the most recent CNN poll, Trump’s net approval on inflation is 50 points underwater, and that this hasn’t been rivaled by any other president. Meanwhile, Republican pollsters and strategists tell The Wall Street Journal that they fear that under Trump, the GOP has thrown away its traditional advantage on the economy. And they suggest time is running out to turn that around. We talked to New Republic senior editor Alex Shephard, who has been arguing well that Trump’s unpopularity is the story of our politics. We discuss why the bottom fell out so quickly for Trump, what the punditry still gets wrong about 2024, and why Democrats won’t make a big case that on the economy, their party tends to be far better than the GOP ever is.

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On the DSR Daily for Monday, we discuss Obama’s call to Abdul El-Sayed, Iran’s demands for reopening the Strait of Hormuz, the new White House counsel, and more. 

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In an interview with Punchbowl News, Donald Trump said straight out that his voters just might not show up for GOP candidates this fall. That’s a striking admission of one of the thorniest problems the GOP faces. But it gets worse. Trump also declared that “a lot” of his voters are “not angry at me,” but “are very angry at Republicans.” That will likely be read by his supporters as a declaration that Republicans are failing Trump, and as encouragement to stay home. Meanwhile, polling shows MAGA voters turning against his war in large numbers. And MS NOW interviewed Trump voters and found them deeply disappointed with his second term. In short, MAGA is cracking up. We talked to Shripal Shah, who runs ad expenditures for the Dem-aligned House Majority PAC. We discuss whether Trump voters are gettable by Democrats, whether the current Democratic lead in the generic House matchup is enough, and how big a challenge the tattered Dem brand really poses. 

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On the DSR Daily Live for Friday, August 7th, Mary Trump joins us to discuss a troubling new jobs report, AIPAC’s new pivot in the Michigan election, Donald Trump’s new executive orders targeting immigrants, and more!

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A striking new Washington Post report reveals that Donald Trump privately raged at Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, demanding to know why he’d been caught off guard by depleted munitions stockpiles. Yet these leaks actually reveal his own serious screw-ups: Trump wrongly concluded that the munitions situation had been fixed, showing that the commander in chief utterly failed to keep track of the impact his decision to go to war was having on the U.S. military. Meanwhile, other leaks suggest that Trump is feeling privately humiliated by his failure to defeat Iran, which freshly exposes just how deep his miscalculations have been all along. We talked to Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, a skillful interpreter of MAGA pathologies. She explains why authoritarian regimes rely on slavish loyalists like Hegseth, discusses why voters’ rejection of Trump is so important to salvaging the American experiment, and deciphers a conundrum known as “the MAGA paradox.” 

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On the DSR Daily for August 6, we discuss Chuck Edwards withdrawing from reelection, the confirmation of a new CDC director, yet another rogue AI breach, and more. 

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Democrats just nominated left-wing populist Abdul El-Sayed in the Michigan Senate race. Yet his victory was razor close, suggesting he faces big challenges ahead. What’s his theory of the case? In his victory speech and in remarks to reporters, El-Sayed offered clues. He described Trumpism as a fusion of the “worst” of neoconservatism and of MAGA, an apt description of the horrors Trump has created. He cast his GOP opponent as a Trump bootlicker, essentially saying this is what Trump demands of his party. And he juxtaposed Trumpism with the ethnic diversity of his coalition and with the immigrant heritage of himself and his children, an effective indictment of Trumpian white-nationalism. Is this enough? We talked to Ron Brownstein, senior political analyst at CNN and columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. We discuss El-Sayed’s many challenges in the general, how he absolutely can assemble a winning coalition, and what he's learned from Barack Obama’s understanding of American politics. 

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Using big bombs make Donald Trump and Pete Hegseth feel like bigger men. But what results from the high-T strategy of ravaging our munitions stocks? Enormous national security risks, skyrocketing military budgets, questionable procurement decisions, and the erosion of longstanding alliances and strategic trust in the US. Former US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall joins David Rothkopf and Rosa Brooks to discuss the current administration’s disastrous foreign policy strategy and how the US could recover from these blunders.

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Progressives across America just keep winning. Abdul El-Sayed’s primary win in Michigan is just another sign that Americans are ready for change and prepared to fight for it. The Left Hook’s Wajahat Ali joins David Rothkopf to celebrate these victories and forecast what progressives and Democrats should do to keep the momentum going into November and beyond. 

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On the DSR Daily for Wednesday, we break down the victory of Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan, a judge dismissing January 6th charges against Oath Keepers, the utter failure of the White House UFC event, and more. 

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Donald Trump has been raging at Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for Washington, DC, because she dropped those high-profile prosecutions for alleged vandalism of his Reflecting Pool renovation. That pressure is corrupt on its own. But new leaks are making it look even worse. CBS News reports that Pirro actually carried a box of evidence to the White House showing that the facts simply didn’t support those prosecutions. The meeting got “heated,” per CBS, seemingly meaning Trump wanted prosecutions in spite of what the facts and the law said. Meanwhile, we just learned this fiasco triggered private “tirades” from Trump, further underscoring his quest for lawless prosecutions. We talked to former federal prosecutor Barbara McQuade, author of The Fix: Saving America from the Corruption of a Mob-Style Government. She walks us through just how deeply irregular this presidential conduct truly is, discusses what has been lost at DOJ, and reflects on how a Democratic House and/or Senate can rein in all this madness next year.

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The tech bros have made their bed, and soon it’s going to be time to lie in it. From Palantir to OpenAI, the figureheads of the major AI companies have endeared themselves to the Trump administration. Financial Times correspondent Joe Miller joins David Rothkopf to discuss how the impending midterms and not too distant presidential election could bring a reckoning to the tech industry. 

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On the DSR Daily for Tuesday, we cover today’s primaries in Michigan and more, another tragic death in ICE custody, reports that the US’s munitions are drastically depleted, and more. 

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On Monday, CNN analyst Harry Enten flagged a truly surprising finding in a Fox News poll that had eluded our attention: Trump’s approval is nine points underwater in Texas, which he won by 14 points in 2024. That’s not all: The Fox poll, which shows Democrat James Talarico up by three points, finds Trump's approval at an astounding 18 percent among independents in Texas, with 50 percent disapproving strongly. That’s remarkable, especially given how key independents are in the Texas Senate race. All this comes as Trump unleashed a long tirade claiming “my REAL poll numbers” are “the best they have ever been.” Trump also bizarrely listed a long litany of accomplishments that were, well, entirely made up, showing he has zero intention to help his party by recalibrating. We talked to Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett, who knows Texas and has worked on midterms. He explains why Trump’s standing with Texas independents is “absolutely shocking,” what the path to victory there looks like, where Talarico still must improve, and how numbers like these could open up other red states for Democrats.

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Scandals and controversies abound in the Republican Party. Between serious allegations against Ohio Representative Miller and bitter infighting over Todd Blanche, a political melee is in full swing in the GOP. Join Norm Ornstein and David Rothkopf as they dissect the latest GOP turmoil, preview the upcoming Michigan Democratic primary, examine AIPAC’s shifting influence, and unpack what it all means for the country.

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On the DSR Daily for Monday, we break down Blanche backing down on the anti-weaponization fund, Trump lashing out over the Reflecting Pool, RFK Jr. telling families to get vaccinated, and more. 

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Donald Trump unleashed an epic tirade at Senator John Cornyn for blocking his IRS lawsuit settlement slush fund, which would let Trump reward allies and grants the Trumps a form of tax immunity. Cornyn is holding up the nomination of Todd Blanche as attorney general until it’s killed. Trump gloated that he’d endorsed Cornyn’s victorious primary opponent and seethed that the American people want him to have this corrupt fund. In response, another foe, Senator Thom Tillis, landed a hard blow, asserting that Trump’s rage over the fund is exactly why it must be killed. Humiliatingly, Tillis treated Trump like a toddler who must be told, “no.” Plus, a defeat would show that Trump’s license to corrupt DOJ is not limitless. (Underscoring this humiliation, after we recorded Trump petulantly exploded again, saying he absolutely will have his fund.) We talked to New Republic staff writer Emma Janssen, author of our great new politics newsletter all about Democrats, The TNR Blue Book, which you should subscribe to, folks! We discuss her installment on how Dems are exploiting these splits, the deeper reasons for them, and how they reveal Trump’s diminishing power more broadly. 

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On the DSR Daily Live for Friday, we break down Hamas agreeing to disarm, Trump’s Cabinet meeting at Camp David, the state of the race in Michigan, and take questions from our live audience. 

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As the conflict with Iran drags on, the Trump administration’s approach and growing American public frustration have dominated the news. But how are Iran’s government and citizens navigating this seemingly interminable war? New York Times journalist and co-author of the new book Stolen Revolution Yeganeh Torbati joins David Rothkopf to provide crucial insight into how Iranians view the war—and why the regime may be better equipped to outlast Washington as hostilities grind on.

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Donald Trump and his dutiful Federal Communications Commission chair, Brendan Carr, have been targeting a number of ABC’s broadcast licenses, and ABC just challenged this hard in a new filing. In an interesting move, ABC cited Trump’s own social media postings and remarks at speeches to show that he is corruptly trying to censor the network as punishment for its content and viewpoints, in violation of the First Amendment. Amusingly, in those examples, Trump blurted right out in public that he does in fact want the FCC to punish ABC precisely because of its speech. Now this has become a weapon against Trump. We talked to law professor Leah Litman, author of a good book about the Supreme Court. She explains why Trump’s public bullying of ABC should undermine his case, walks us through the legal ins-and-outs here, details why ABC might prevail, and discusses how open, explicit corruption is intrinsic to his political project.

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On the DSR Daily for Thursday, we break down new reports that the economy is in worse shape than predicted, new Iranian strikes near the Suez Canal, Elon Musk’s attempt to block anti-nudification legislation in Minnesota, and more. 

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Donald Trump is suddenly bumping up against limits in many areas at once. Top aides just leaked to The Atlantic that he’s “frustrated” with his inability to force Iran’s hand with his increasingly deranged threats. In the case of Trump’s bogus efforts to prosecute James Comey, we just learned that he personally demanded briefings in real time about interrogations of him. That reveals in deeply humiliating fashion his extraordinary personal involvement in the case and makes it more likely it’ll get tossed. His acting DNI chief Bill Pulte is boasting about firing “deep state” denizens even though this may not have actually happened. To make sense of all this, we talked to Talking Points Memo editor-at-large David Kurtz, author of the excellent “Morning Memo” newsletter. We discuss the legal ins-and-outs of these new developments, why there’s some cause for optimism that Trump is being meaningfully constrained, how our institutions are nonetheless on a knife’s edge, and what the endgame of Trump’s attempted authoritarian takeover might look like.

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In its bout with Iran, the US is neither floating like a butterfly nor stinging like a bee. Trump’s dual meetings with Netanyahu and Zelensky have laid bare the foreign policy lightweight that our president really is while Iran only gets stronger.  Lieutenant General Douglas Lute joins David Rothkopf and Ed Luce to discuss the war against Iran, Ukraine’s continued defense against Russian aggression, and how each misstep by the administration is leading up to an inevitable knockout. 

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On the DSR Daily for Wednesday, we break down the US and Saudi Arabia launching strikes in Iraq, Rand Paul’s latest attack on Fauci ahead of a Senate hearing, the confirmation of Jay Clayton as intelligence chief, and more. 

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On Fox News, Donald Trump threatened to bomb all of Iran’s bridges and all of its power plants. Making this worse, Trump declared that his threat could leave all of Iran’s 91 million people without power. That may be the first time Trump has explicitly said this threat could apply to Iran’s entire population, which would constitute an extraordinary atrocity. Though Trump presented this as something he’d be reluctant to do, the key is he still confirmed it’s under consideration. Meanwhile, many MAGA figures are very upset about Trump’s new meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu, fearing it portends an escalation: As Steve Bannon put it, this is a “disaster for America First.” MAGA doesn’t care much about Iranians, but Trump’s escalation threats do rattle them for other reasons. We talked to former State Department official Emily Horne, author of the Spin Class Substack. We discuss the humanitarian horrors Trump is actually hinting at, what MAGA pressure on Trump means, and why the logic of the trap ensnaring Trump could lead to a terrible ending.

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On the DSR Daily for Tuesday, we discuss Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, the ending of temporary protected status for Haitian and Syrian immigrants, the uncertain future of Todd Blanche’s confirmation, and more. 

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Andrew and Tristan Tate, two major “manosphere” influencers, were recently arrested in Miami and now face charges of rape and sex trafficking in Britain. The White House now says Donald Trump will not intervene in their extradition, a turnaround for two top MAGA figures who are close to Trump’s inner circle and helped him win young men in 2024. Worse, many MAGA figures are following Trump and deserting the Tates. Still, MAGA is cracking over this: Tucker Carlson and several other figures are expressing sharp skepticism of the charges, treating the Tates as martyrs and raging at the charges as “politically driven.” As Guardian columnist Moira Donegan and I conclude in this episode, their dissent is significant: It’s clearly speaking to a sizable chunk of MAGA that actively lionizes the violent misogyny that the Tates represent. We discuss the deeper causes of MAGA’s divisions over the Tates, why the MAGA vision of masculinity is imploding, how Democrats got spooked by 2024 into overreading Trump’s successes with young men, and how they can speak to this constituency more effectively.

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Donald Trump has hit a trifecta, throwing away the traditional GOP edge on the economy, immigration, and national security. The latest polls show Democrats are leading Republicans on the economy by a comfortable nine points, have hit near-parity with the GOP on immigration, and lead on foreign policy, even as Trump has sunk into the 20s on the Iran war, all shockers. These polls show it’s all driven by Trump’s collapsing approval on all three. Yet Trump just unleashed a huge new wave of tariffs. His GOP allies are leaking their deep dismay to Politico: One suggests this worsens the affordability problem and cannot be spun favorably by GOP candidates. Another says this is a “bad conversation for Republicans.” We talked to Democratic strategist Andrew Bates. He explains what all this looks like on the ground in difficult House races, what obstacles still remain, and why it remains hard for Democrats to win rural voters who are unhappy with Trump. 

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On the DSR Daily Live for Friday, we discuss the DoD changing the official troop death numbers in Iran, a slate of new tariffs from the administration, Iran rejecting a ceasefire proposal from the US, and more. 

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Donald Trump exploded at Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Wednesday, demanding that he hurry up and pass the SAVE Act, the horrific voter suppression that Trump thinks will save the GOP. This comes as the House is passing funding to reward states that adopt its provisions. The idea is Senate Republicans can pass those via reconciliation. Thune says the votes aren’t there, but Trump went nuclear on him and the White House joined the fray, so pressure is growing. This comes as a Fox News poll finds the GOP seven points behind in the House ballot matchup, and falling far behind Democrats on the economy, to boot. Other new polls are showing further GOP deterioration. We talked to Ari Berman, the great voting rights reporter for Mother Jones. He walks us through how Trump’s plot would really work, the obstacles it faces, why Trump really might attempt to seize ballot boxes, and what would  happen next.

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An OpenAI model has gone rogue. Not only has it gone rogue, but it hacked Hugging Face completely unprompted and without approval. That’s pretty scary. But just how much of this story should legitimately frighten us, and how much is being blown out of proportion? Senior Editor for AI at MIT Technology Review Will Heaven joins David Rothkopf to cut through the bullshit and share why we should be concerned and if we should expect similar incidents in the future. 

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