Wednesday, March 25, 2026. Americans are not happy with the job market, or the economy, or Chump's war on Immigrants or on Chump's war on Iran, but Chump's lackey Stephen Miller is pushing against a Supreme Court ruling to overturn education for children in the United States.
More
Americans say they are struggling at their jobs rather than thriving,
even as confidence in the job market has hit a new low, according to a
poll.
The latest Gallup poll shows that for the
first time since they began tracking U.S. workers’ life satisfaction, a
larger share say they are struggling (49 percent) than thriving (46
percent).
A year ago, 47 percent said they were struggling, while 49 percent said they were thriving.
What
happened? Donald Chump. Make America Great Again just meant bigger
tax breaks for the rich. It meant destroying federal agencies. It
meant destroying federal oversight -- protecting workers on the job,
protecting our environment. It meant putting a tag on everything and
selling it off. It meant lying to a bunch of uninformed people who will
never be rich -- or even well off -- that the destruction of our public
square was going to help them in some way.
President
Donald Trump is now underwater on every major issue tested, according
to new polling, as economic anxiety and foreign policy tensions build
ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Voters are juggling higher prices, economic unease and a widening war with Iran, and history suggests that kind of environment rarely favors the party in power.
Trump’s
approval rating has fallen to its lowest-ever level in a new survey
from media outlet The Argument, which polled 1,519 registered voters
nationwide between March 12 and March 17, 2026, with a margin of error
of plus or minus 2.7 percent.
In its latest
national survey, just 40 percent of registered voters said they approved
of Trump’s performance, while 58 percent disapproved.
That produced a net approval rating of -18, the worst result for Trump in the history of The Argument’s polling series.
While Trump has long been a polarizing figure, this moment marks uncharted territory
because, according to the outlet, no previous Trump-era poll it has
fielded—across either presidency—has produced numbers this negative.
President
Donald Trump's approval rating fell in recent days to its lowest point
since he returned to the White House, hit by a surge in fuel prices and
widespread disapproval of the war he launched on Iran, a Reuters/Ipsos
poll found.
The four-day
poll, completed on Monday, showed 36% of Americans approve of Trump's
job performance, down from 40% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted last
week.
Americans' views on Trump soured
significantly with regard to his stewardship over the economy and the
cost of living, as gasoline prices have surged since the U.S. and Israel
launched coordinated strikes on Iran on February 28. Just 25% of
respondents approved of Trump's handling of the cost of living, an issue
that was at the center of his 2024 presidential election campaign.
Only
29% of the country approves of Trump's economic stewardship, the lowest
rating in either of Trump's presidential administrations and lower than
any economic approval rating of his predecessor, Democrat Joe Biden.
President
Donald Trump reportedly ordered 3,000 more U.S. troops to the Middle
East this week, reported Fox News Chief National Security Correspondent
Jennifer Griffin on Tuesday.
“Fox News has
learned that the Commander of the 82nd Airborne Division Maj Gen Brandon
Tegtmeier and his ‘command element,’ members of his headquarters staff,
have been ordered to deploy to the Middle East as the Pentagon and
White House weigh whether to send the 82nd Airborne Division to the
Middle East for possible land operations,” Griffin wrote on X.
The Wall Street Journal also confirmed the report,
noting, “Officials cautioned that a decision to put boots on the ground
in Iran hasn’t been made. But deploying the 82nd opens the door to
President Trump for several strategic options.”
Pakistan’s
prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, says his country is ready to
“facilitate meaningful and conclusive talks” to end the war in the
Middle East amid attempts to push Islamabad as a possible venue for
negotiations between the US and Iran.
Pakistani
sources said the US vice-president, JD Vance, was being put forward as a
probable chief negotiator from the US side if talks went ahead. Iranian
sources have said they would refuse to sit down with Trump’s Middle
East envoy, Steve Witkoff, or Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who led
the nuclear negotiations with Iran before the war.
Officials
in Pakistan said the US and Iran could meet for negotiations in
Islamabad as early as this week to discuss an end to the war, which
began almost a month ago.
[. . .]
The
source said the Iranian side viewed Vance as a more acceptable
interlocutor. Vance is widely viewed as a sceptic of the decision to
entangle the US in a Middle East war and has largely kept quiet on the
conflict. “If the negotiations are going to have any outcome, JD Vance
should join,” they said. “With Witkoff and Kushner, nothing will come
out of it. We have seen that in the past.”
When
Joe Biden was elected president, he frequently asserted that “America
was back” and collaborating with allies again. But the fact that the
United States would elect Donald Trump once was enough to make the world
skeptical of that claim, and as the New York Times columnist Carlos Lozada writes,
not only was that mistrust “vindicated with Trump’s return to the White
House, but his second term has marked the emergence of a “post-America
world” from which there may be no recovery.
As
evidence of this, Lozada cites the recent words of Canadian Prime
Minister Mark Carney, who warned, “The old order is not coming back. We
shouldn’t mourn it. Nostalgia is not a strategy.”
According
to Lozada, the “Pax Americana, that U.S.-led system of alliances and
institutions that promoted American interests and values and helped
avoid major conflicts in the decades after World War II, is gone, and
irretrievably so.” Trump’s presidency has shredded those alliances and
diminished those institutions to the point where “it is clear by now
that the United States has ceased to be the leader of the free world.”
Lozada
uses the example of Trump’s war on Iran, which Trump launched after a
year of steadily alienating allies before asking those very allies for
help. When they refused, Trump responded with characteristic bluster,
saying, “We don’t need anybody. We’re the strongest nation in the world.
We have the strongest military by far in the world. We don’t need
them.”
Chump's destroyed America's place in the world. And now? Iranian officials want to speak with . . . JD Vance.
Donald Trump’s tirades about Iran are getting uglier. He let out one rant that positively relished U.S. military domination of Iran and seethed about the media’s refusal to acknowledge his greatness. He unleashed a second tirade that dripped with bizarre triumphalism, angrily declaring the war “won,” which raises questions about why it’s continuing. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered a rant that was drenched in bloodlust. This comes as a new Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll
finds Trump’s approval at 37 percent and underwater on every issue,
with majorities questioning the war’s most basic premises. That mirrors
other polls from CBS, Reuters and NBC showing him in trouble and a recent Quinnipiac poll finding his coalition fracturing over the war.
President Trump’s threat to “obliterate”
power stations in Iran if its leaders failed to open the Strait of
Hormuz suggests that the United States is willing to violate
international humanitarian law as part of its military campaign,
according to current and former human rights officials.
“If
Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within
48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America
will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE
BIGGEST ONE FIRST!” Mr. Trump wrote on social media on Saturday.
The
president’s threat appears to be part of his erratic messaging
campaign, which is often construed as bluster or misdirection.
“Trump
is openly threatening a war crime,” said Kenneth Roth, a former
executive director of Human Rights Watch. “And people aren’t saying
anything because they’re numb to it.”
By threatening to attack civilian
infrastructure, Mr. Trump has once again pushed the United States into
territory more familiar to its enemies than its allies.
In
2024, the International Criminal Court issued four arrest warrants to
Russian military officers and officials charging them with war crimes
for attacking “Ukrainian electric infrastructure.”
International
law, specifically Article 52 of the first additional protocol of the
Geneva Conventions, prohibits attacks on civilian objects. These laws
are meant to protect civilians and those who can no longer fight, such
as wounded soldiers, from the “barbarity of war.”
At MEIDASTOUCH NEWS this morning, Ben provides an overview of the ongoing war.
Last night on MS NOW, Lawrence O'Donnell took on the childish whines of Chump.
Today on MS NOW's MORNING JOE, they took on Pete Hegseth's immaturity and inexperience.
As the war with Iran continues and gas prices rise, Paul Krugman notes Chump's attack on energy sources that aren't fossil fuel-based:
We are now in a global fossil fuel crisis. With oil and
liquefied natural gas from the Persian Gulf unable to reach
international markets due to Iran’s blockade of the Strait of Hormuz,
hydrocarbon prices have been soaring around the world and widespread
shortages are emerging. Anyone who thought that the U.S. would be
insulated from this dire picture thanks to its large domestic oil
production has had a rude awakening: the average retail price of gasoline has risen more than $1 per gallon over the past month, while the price of diesel is up $1.60.
But
the Trump administration hasn’t allowed these short-run distractions to
divert it from its long-run goals: It remains deeply committed to
killing renewable energy, especially wind power, and increasing
America’s reliance on fossil fuels.
True, some of the
administration’s attacks on wind power have failed: Its efforts to
throttle offshore wind development by ordering developers to stop work
on projects that are already underway have repeatedly been overruled by the courts. But the administration is continuing to block development of onshore wind and solar power by freezing the issuance of federal permits.
And
on Monday the Interior Department unveiled a new tactic in its war on
wind: It announced that it will pay TotalEnergies, a French energy
giant, almost $1 billion to not produce energy — specifically to abandon its plans to build two large wind farms off the East Coast.
To
understand the Trump administration’s motives in its campaign to kill
renewable energy, one must realize that this campaign is both
economically self-destructive and, despite the best efforts of the
fossil fuel industry, deeply unpopular.
Immigration. Former US Senator
Markwayne Mullin on Monday was confirmed as the new Secretary of
Homeland Security. As a former legislator, maybe the law will matter to
him in a way that it did not matter to Kristi Noem? Claudia Boyd-Barrett, Renuka Rayasam, and Amanda Seitz (CNN) report:
Carlos
arrived at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in New Mexico
in December, believing he was one step closer to reuniting with his
children. By that point, his 14-year-old son and 16-year-old daughter
had been in a federal shelter in Texas for nearly a year after crossing
the border to be with him.
“I
feel like I’m suffocating inside this shelter, trapped with no way out,”
Carlos’ son said, according to one of the teens’ attorneys, when asked
to describe how he felt after months at the Houston-area facility.
“Every day, the same routine. Every day, feeling stuck. It makes me feel
hopeless and terrified.”
During daily video
calls, Carlos, who had temporary protected status, urged the siblings to
be patient, to trust the process. Federal officials had vetted Carlos
before he could be granted custody and told him his case was complete.
He believed he would soon be back with his children, who, like him, had
sought refuge from political violence in Venezuela.
An
immigration officer called Carlos on a Friday and asked him to attend a
meeting at an ICE office the following Monday to discuss reunification
with his children. Once Carlos arrived, officers tried to force him to
sign documents he said he didn’t understand. When he refused, they
stripped off his clothes, seized his ID and belongings, and chained him
by the neck, waist, and legs.
“They
tricked me,” Carlos said in a phone call from an immigration detention
center in El Paso, Texas, where he was held for several months. “They
used my children to grab me,” he said.
In
reporting on the family’s story, KFF Health News reviewed court
documents, spoke with the family’s immigration attorneys, interviewed
Carlos, and reviewed statements from his children, translated from
Spanish. Carlos is a pseudonym, being used at the request of attorneys
concerned that speaking out could jeopardize Carlos’ immigration case or
further delay his reunion with his family.
Since
2003, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Refugee
Resettlement has cared for immigrant children under 18 who arrive in the
country without their parents, often fleeing violence, abuse, or
trafficking. The office, which in February had more than 2,300 children
in shelters or with foster families across the country, is supposed to
promptly release them to vetted caregivers, typically parents or other
family members already living in the country.
Congress
placed this responsibility with the health agency over 20 years ago to
prioritize the well-being of unaccompanied children and separate their
care from immigration enforcement priorities.
Now
the second Trump administration is using migrant children held by the
resettlement office to lure their parents, such as Carlos, whether or
not they have a criminal record. A KFF Health News investigation found
the resettlement office, headed by a former ICE official, coordinates with the Department of Homeland Security to arrest people seeking custody of migrant children.
Former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem may have been fired from that role
following President Donald Trump's rage over her massive taxpayer
expenditure on a commercial promoting herself, but she wasn't cast out
of the Trump administration entirely — and her new assignment was met
with widespread mockery as it was widely seen as a move to humiliate
her.
Trump initially announced her
firing as a new appointment as Special Envoy to the Shield of the
Americas — a small, made-up role that was a clear downgrade to a
Cabinet-level office. And on Tuesday, CBS News' Olivia Gazis reported
that "In her capacity as Special Envoy to Shield of the Americas Kristi
Noem will report directly to Deputy Secretary of State Chris Landau, per
a State Department official."
This new development that her boss will be a deputy triggered a fresh wave of ridicule.
"Oof," wrote Politico diplomatic correspondent Felicia Schwartz.
"In
March Madness terms, this is basically like getting kicked off the
starting five and wounding up as the unlucky student who ensures the
team mascot isn't being hassled by drunk frat boys," writer Charlotte
Clymer posted.
Pam
Bondi might have just “exposed” the real mastermind behind Donald
Trump’s controversial policies, whom social media is hailing as the
“shadow president” and someone who is actually pulling the strings. She
revealed that it was none other than Stephen Miller who was the
architect behind Trump’s plan to deploy the National Guard to the U.S.
cities.
According to The
Mirror, the President (79) was joined by top officials from his MAGA
administration at a roundtable discussion about the Memphis Safe Task
Force’s operations and successes on Monday, March 23, 2026, afternoon.
Reportedly,
Bondi (60) was one of the pivotal figures and spoke about Trump’s
decision to deploy the National Guard to the southern city. The Attorney
General revealed with great pride that United States Homeland Security
Advisor Stephen Miller (40) was the “real mastermind” behind the
decision.
Stephen
Miller was met with an “uncomfortable silence” when he tried to demand
loyalty from Texas House Republicans during a closed-door meeting,
according to reports.
The White House deputy
chief of staff met with Texas lawmakers last week to try to push them to
pass more hardline immigration policies in the red state.
The
four-hour meeting got off to an embarrassing start for the top Donald
Trump ally when Miller asked, “Do we have a RINO problem in
Texas?”—using the insulting acronym for “Republican in name only” that
MAGA supporters use against GOP lawmakers deemed too moderate or
insufficiently loyal to the president’s ultra-conservative agenda.
“There
was no answer—it was just uncomfortable silence,” State Rep. Tom
Oliverson, the chairman of the Texas House Republican Caucus, told The New York Times.
Fellow
state Rep. Charlie Geren also walked out of the room after becoming
frustrated with Miller’s questions about “RINOs” in Texas, according to
the conservative website Current Revolt, which first reported on the meeting.
Last week, Stephen Miller—Don Trump’s wartime consigliere—met with Texas’s Republican legislators and asked them why they hadn’t passed a bill that banned undocumented children from public schools.
At first glance, the answer to that question might be that in 1982, the Supreme Court ruled in Plyler v. Doe
that states were legally required to pay for the elementary school
education of children regardless of their immigration status. But, as
Tom Oliverson, the chairman of the Texas House Republican Caucus, told The New York Times yesterday, “There’s a lot of people that believe that that ruling has some pretty faulty logic associated with it.”
Well, sure. The Supreme Court clearly had a bias in favor of a generally
well-educated public, able to perform the range of jobs and tasks that a
functioning nation tends to require. That a bias in favor of a
well-educated public has seldom infected Texas Republicans, Fox News,
the MAGA movement, or Stephen Miller and his Don goes without saying.
Indeed, a well-educated public inherently poses a long-term threat to
authoritarians and authoritarian wannabes, inasmuch as such a public may
wish to have a say in many public policies.
As Mother Jones‘ Isabela Dias reported
back in 2022, this isn’t the first time that Miller has attempted this.
In 2019, during Trump’s first term, he reportedly led a similar push.
One that, according to TIME, he’d been driving at since 2017.
In the decades since Plyler, there have been several unsuccessful attempts to upend the highest court’s ruling. The current one is buoyed by the Trump administration’s multi-pronged anti-immigration campaign that has come to define his second term.
As Mother Jones‘ Isabela Dias reported
back in 2022, this isn’t the first time that Miller has attempted this.
In 2019, during Trump’s first term, he reportedly led a similar push.
One that, according to TIME, he’d been driving at since 2017.
In the decades since Plyler, there have been several unsuccessful attempts to upend the highest court’s ruling. The current one is buoyed by the Trump administration’s multi-pronged anti-immigration campaign that has come to define his second term.
Miller isn’t alone. Also this month, Rep. Chip Roy, a Republican from Texas, led a House hearing to discuss how Plyler “was wrongly decided and how it harms America’s schools and students,” according to his press office.
During the meeting, Roy said in his opening statement: “It’s time for
it to go.” Roy went on to criticize programs in schools that taught
English to language learners and refugees. Roy is currently vying for
Attorney General of Texas in a runoff election.
Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers, cited Roy’s hopes in his response: “Toying with children’s futures to win a primary election is the tactic of a small, sad man.”
This enlivened push to restrict access to public education comes as scores of immigrant children are already afraid to go to school across the country as Immigration and Customs Enforcement have repeatedly been seen near schools or bus stops. (The Department of Homeland Security has said
they do “NOT raid or target schools” despite “media force-feeding the
public stories about parents and children being scared to return to
school.”)
While Miller was treated like an after thought or a non-thought by Texas lawmakers, he did register with others recently. Pedro Camacho (LATIN TIMES) reports:
White
House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller ranks as the most unpopular
political figure in the United States, according to a new polling
average cited by Migrant Insider. Other high-profile figures including
Rand Paul, Scott Bessent and Pam Bondi are next in line.
The
Race to the White House polling average, which compiles multiple recent
surveys of 27 prominent political figures, found that Miller had a net
favorability of negative 36 points among voters who have formed an
opinion about him.
According to analysis by Pablo Manriquez of Migrant Insider,
68% of respondents viewed him unfavorably, while only about 18%
expressed a favorable opinion. The ranking places Miller below other
figures in the survey, including Bondi, who registered a negative 32
rating, and other administration-aligned officials. By comparison,
President Trump posted a negative 16 rating in the same dataset, while
JD Vance stood at negative 12.
Former president
Barack Obama led the poll with positive 18 points, followed by former
First Lady Michelle Obama and Bernie Sanders.
Has
Donald Trump finally figured out that Stephen Miller’s fascist
cruelties have become a niggling political liability for him? Well,
maybe. A striking report
in The Wall Street Journal suggests Trump may be moving to marginalize
Miller’s influence. But Trump appears to think the difficulty can be
cured by a few optical tweaks, when the real culprit is a deeper
ideological one.
Trump wants to
“lower the profile of his mass deportation effort,” the Journal
reveals. He wants voters to think the targets of these deportations are
“bad guys,” not noncriminal undocumented residents. He wants less
visibility for ICE raids in cities, fewer public confrontations with
local officials, and less public talk about “mass deportations,” which,
he now grasps, are hideously unpopular.
Tellingly,
White House chief of staff Suzie Wiles now sees deportations as a
liability for the midterms, per the report. That Trump is siding with
her on the politics here is a sign of political panic and a rebuke to
Miller, who apparently delights in flaunting the administration’s
vicious sadism and overt white nationalism—and seems certain that latent
majorities are quietly cheering along.
We'll note some video coverage of the ongoing Epstein scandal.
