Today on CNN's NEWSROOM, Harry Enten addressed Donald Chump's polling
After last night and the White House Correspondents' Dinner and the speech or whatever that was from President Trump, I don't want us to lose sight of the fact that President Trump is amazingly unpopular with the American public right now. What are we talking about? Well, just to put it into some perspective for you, I put four different polls for you on the screen here. This is his net approval rating in them. These all came out or all conducted during the month of July. And you see a lot of red because President Trump is not just in the red. He is in the dark red. Look at this. CNBC, the best of the bunch, 19 points underwater on the net approval rating. That's approval minus disapproval. How about Fox? Minus 22 points. How about The Washington Post? Minus 24 points. And then Pew Research that came out late this last week, 30 points underwater. My goodness gracious. He's down there at the bottom of the Hudson River. We're not just talking red. I mentioned dark red. We're talking crimson red in terms of how far underwater President Trump is right now when it comes to his overall popularity. Now, what is driving this unpopularity for President Trump? Simply put, it is the economy.
What are we talking about? Well, Trump's economic net approval rating. And I want you to take a look. I want to make a comparison between Trump's two terms in office, at this time in Trump's terms. In July of 2018, the economy, that was a strength. That was a strength for President Trump. He was above water. That is his approval rating was 10 points above his disapproval rating. Look at where we are now. We are talking about a 44-point shift in the wrong direction. Again, we got the red on your screen right here. Look at this. President Trump is 34 points underwater on the economy in the latest Fox News, Paula. And if you think, you think the 34 points underwater is bad. Look at that. I have that little note. I'm not sure you can see it, but that is 52 points, 52 points underwater with independents. Independents, of course, being the name of the game when it comes to elections. You've got to win independents or at least come close with them in order to win election. President Trump isn't anywhere close to positive territory.
Now,
speaking of elections, you know, I think perhaps there's some
Republicans out there saying, hey, you know what? President Trump is one
thing. He's not on the ballot come November. But what gets President
Trump will likely also get Republicans in Congress. Why do I say that?
Well, let's take a look here. OK, trusted more on the economy. The
economy was why President Trump won a second term in office back in
2024. And when voters were asked, who do you trust more in the
economy, Donald Trump or Kamala Harris? According to Fox, look at that.
Trump was trusted more by eight points. Look at where we are now. Just a
few months ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. What was an advantage
for Trump? The reason he got elected for a second term may be the exact
same reason that Republicans are turned out of power.
Look at
this now. Democrats have a nine-point advantage on the economy,
according to the latest Fox News poll. If these numbers hold for the
November elections and the economy is the number one issue, inflation,
the cost of living, the economy, I really just don't see how Republicans
can hold on to power in the House.
That is not good news for Chump -- not as the midterms loom nor as he and Pete Hegseth beg Congress for more money for the war on Iran. Polling was also addressed on CBS' FACE THE NATION this morning:
MARGARET BRENNAN: For more from our new CBS poll, we turn to our executive director of elections and surveys, Anthony Salvanto. Anthony, good to have you here.
ANTHONY SALVANTO: Good morning.
MARGARET BRENNAN: This has not been a popular war. We're now five months into it. We were told it was going to be five weeks, roughly. How are Americans feeling?
ANTHONY SALVANTO: When I ask them directly to describe their feelings, the top answers most give are uncertain and frustrated. Let's unpack that, especially the uncertainty, because it speaks to the duration that you mentioned. Number one, people think that this is a war that the Trump administration did not properly anticipate how hard it would be. And that relates to duration. This is a conflict that people now think we're going to be in for months, if not years, if they have an estimate at all. But the other part of this is about goals. And when I ask people from a list of things that could be U.S. achievements or goals here – and, yes, that includes opening up the strait, because that's a problem with gas prices, et cetera, but also you have got the idea of making Iran's people safe and free, yes, stopping the nuclear program, stopping Iran from threatening its neighbors. These things all get large and often bipartisan support. The difficulty is, people don't think the war is going well. We're not achieving those things. In fact, the number who say it's going badly has been creeping up over the duration of the war. So, faced with a binary choice, do we press on and continue or end it, a majority still says they would prefer to end it at this point. The folks who say that we ought to press on – and it's largely Republicans. They tend to be a little bit older. Republicans have followed the president's lead on this, by and large. But it also comes back to those goals. To them, those goals are even more important. So, collectively, you could see them saying, OK, you started this, not everyone necessarily likes it, but now win it, and win it in a tangible way that delivers something back people can see.
MARGARET BRENNAN: The argument for communication is always bring the public along with you. But we're hearing even from lawmakers they don't think the president has communicated enough on this. What do Americans say on that front?
ANTHONY SALVANTO: That has been a consistent feeling throughout this conflict, that people don't think that they're getting a clear view of the goals, but also here that they don't understand what's happening day-to-day in the strait specifically. And, of course, that also affects them back home. The other part is the president's description of this, which a majority describe as they feel he makes things sound better than they really are.
MARGARET BRENNAN: So how is that impacting the mood on the economy?
ANTHONY SALVANTO: Well, we're in sort of a pattern of, it's stable, but not necessarily in a good place. You still see large majorities saying their incomes are not keeping pace with inflation. You turn back to the president on this, and people still say, by large numbers, not enough focus from the administration on lowering prices. But staying with Iran again for a second, by comparison, the public doesn't see the Democrats as having a better solution or a set of approaches for Iran.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Yes.
ANTHONY SALVANTO: Certainly something to keep an eye on heading into the midterms. And the people who think neither side does, they're even more uncertain than the rest of the public.
On the continued war, David E. Sanger does an analysis at THE NEW YORK TIMES:
President Trump often celebrates his unpredictability, declaring that it keeps allies and adversaries alike off balance.
By his telling, his willingness to bomb Iranian nuclear sites 13 months ago, and send Delta Force commandos in to snatch President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela from his bed in early January, reflected his determination to execute military operations that would have made his predecessors blanch. He told The New York Times he was limited only by “my own morality,” as he wielded the world’s biggest hammer.
But in recent weeks, he has seemed trapped, his presidency gradually consumed by a war he cannot find his way out of.
He has discovered limits on his power that he could have scarcely imagined as he began full combat operations on Feb. 28, when he set out goals for a swift end to Iran’s nuclear program and the overthrow of the country’s government.
Five months later, those goals remain almost entirely unaccomplished. And Mr. Trump, once confident that overwhelming force would enable him to pursue in Iran what he proudly called the “Venezuela model” — a change of government to one amenable to U.S. control — is now hesitant to plunge back into major combat operations that his intelligence agencies assess are unlikely to work as well in Tehran.
He has been unable to control surging oil prices, or their effects on the stock market. The shipping that crawled to a stop in the Strait of Hormuz, then was opened for a few short weeks, is back to a trickle, with a second choke point, between the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, now threatened. And while the president has threatened to take Kharg Island, where Iran ships oil, or to seize its underground stores of enriched uranium, he has said publicly that he knows there is no appetite for sending in ground troops.
He was an idiot to think he had control to begin with. But Netanyahu, coached by Lindsey Graham, lured Chump and Chump's vanity into war. Back in March, David McAfee (RAW STORY) noted:
The WSJ ahead of the weekend published a story called, "Lindsey Graham's Quest to Sell Trump on Striking Iran." In that piece, there is a nugget about the senator engaging in a campaign to help Netanyahu to persuade Trump to launch an Iran war.
"To help make the case on Iran, Graham traveled several times to Israel in recent weeks, meeting with members of the country's intelligence agency," the Journal reported Friday.
Graham is quoted in the article as saying, "They'll tell me things our own government won't tell me."
The report further states, "He spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, coaching him on how to lobby the president for action. Netanyahu showed the president intelligence that persuaded Trump to go ahead, Graham said."
Chump's an idiot and it took an idiot to start the Iran War. He was able to start it but he has no idea how to end it. It's a point Senator Chris Van Hollen made to Martha Raddatz on ABC's THIS WEEK today:
SEN. CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, (D) MARYLAND & FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE: Martha, I don’t see a clear strategy. And there’s never been a clear strategy. We should never have gotten into this senseless war, and we should end it now. I'm glad that they’re not going to unload again with a big military strike. That would just drag it more deeply into this conflict. A conflict that we should be getting out of, not getting deeper into.
RADDATZ: And, Senator, “The Times” reported that he’s holding off because advisors said munitions are depleting and they feared a wider war. What do you know about those munitions?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, that’s exactly right. We have depleted our interceptors, which are the weapons we use to intercept incoming Iranian attacks. Which are, obviously, necessary to protect American troops. And so, we are depleting these every day, despite the fact that we could face other potential conflicts around the world. You know, as you said in the lead-in, Martha, Donald Trump said, we won this war. We won. Those were his words back in March. And so the question is, now we’re in July, why are Americans still getting killed? Why is the Strait of Hormuz still closed? Why are oil and gas prices going back through the roof again?
RADDATZ: Well, you have said, there’s no good way to get out of a bad war. So, how do you think you end this? You have the Iranians, who haven’t kept their word. What do you do?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, when you’re digging a hole, you just stop digging. And my view is that’s what we should do. There was no clear objective from this -- for this war from the beginning. This was a war started by President Trump and Prime Minister Netanyahu. Prime Minister Netanyahu convinced Donald Trump that it would be quick and that we would get regime change. And what we’ve gotten instead is an even more militant Iranian regime, and the Strait of Hormuz, of course, is still closed now when it was open the day before the war. So, my view is just, end it right now. And I will not vote for one more penny for this senseless war.
RADDATZ: So, you just walk away from that war. What would the Iranians take away from that? What would happen to them and their ambitions at this point?
VAN HOLLEN: Well, Martha, I think the Strait of Hormuz would then reopen. I mean that would -- there’s no question that Iran would go back to the status quo ante (ph) before the war started. I believe that. And that would show just how senseless this war is. But, again, Donald Trump declared victory back in March. And so, my view is, is end it. We had Pete Hegseth before the Appropriations Committee. Clearly, no strategy. And when you have no strategy, it’s completely unfair to American troops to continue to put them in harm’s way.
But that's what Chump is doing. He has no plan to end the war. He just wants to spend his way through. And they're asking for billions more for this war -- Chump and Hegseth. On NBC's MEET TE PRESS, Kristen Welker spoke with Senator Mark Kelly about the financial request.
KRISTEN WELKER: Thank you so much for joining us. I do wanna start where I left off with Ambassador Mike Waltz on Iran, of course. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said this week that the U.S. is still open to a diplomatic resolution to the war. He also described the president’s approach as, quote, “A head for an eye.” As someone who has flown combat missions during the Gulf War, Senator, do you think that’s the right approach?
SEN. MARK KELLY: Well, I think these guys are flailing, and this thing is completely stuck. Because this president got into this without a strategic goal, despite what Mike Waltz said about that they had a strategic aim in mind. At first, remember, Kristen, this was about regime change. Then it became about nuclear weapons, then about ballistic missiles, then about the Navy. They are flailing here. And I mean, the head for the eye thing, I mean this is — you hear this stuff out of the Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, you know, running around on a stage about maximal lethality, and killing people, and setting records with the number of targets hit. I mean, when you were talking to him about munitions, of course we’ve used a lot of munitions. We hit a lot of targets. 14,000 as of the last time I heard Pete Hegseth talk about this. So this thing has been a disaster, and it’s been a disaster for the American people. In a time when they couldn’t afford their lives, this president gets us into this war, and costs then continue to skyrocket. The price of gas, $4.50 a gallon here in Arizona, over $4 a gallon across the country. People can’t afford groceries and rent. I mean, this thing has been a disaster, and they do not know what to do.
KRISTEN WELKER: Senator Kelly, I want to drill down with you on that point about munitions. Let me read you some of NBC’s exclusive reporting. “U.S. military commanders have been picking and choosing which Iranian missiles to intercept amid an effort to preserve the Pentagon’s diminishing supply of weapons.” What is your response to that report?
SEN. MARK KELLY: Well, it’s pretty obvious to people. When you’re in a conflict now for five months, and you’re flying in some cases hundreds of sorties a day, attacking targets just to drive the numbers up. I mean, Pete Hegseth talked about this a lot. And by the way, the guy doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s incompetent. He should’ve never had this job, and he should be fired. But they were all about the numbers. You know a conflict that — you know he was talking about setting records, going over 10,000 targets, 12,000, 14,000. Most of those targets are hit with multiple, multiple weapons. So of course, I mean, we’ve expended tens of thousands of weapons. And it takes — as Pete Hegseth said in the committee hearing when I asked him this question, it’s going to take years to replenish these. This is by their own making. They’re not keeping track. They — at this point, this president and the people around him are incompetent.
KRISTEN WELKER: Given the dwindling munitions, which you’re referencing, Secretary Hegseth, as you well know, asked for an additional $67 billion more for the war with Iran. He said it’s necessary to sustain military readiness. Will you vote to approve that $67 billion, Senator? Do you see that as necessary?
SEN. MARK KELLY: Kristen, they’re also asking for $1.5 trillion for the Defense budget this year, and a supplemental. When I got to the Senate just five and a half years ago, the Defense budget was $740 billion. It’s more than doubled in five and a half years. We’re now approaching numbers of, like, what the rest of the world combined spends on defense. I mean, do we really feel that we’re that threatened, and we need to spend these sums of money for our defense? We’ve got programs that this administration is going to spend money on that aren’t going to work, and things that we don’t need. If we had some competent people running this department you could figure out, how do you defend our nation in a way and give the troops what they need within a reasonable budget? What they’re asking for is not reasonable.
KRISTEN WELKER: So just to be very clear, are you a no on approving that $67 billion? You won’t approve it?
SEN. MARK KELLY: Hey, I haven’t made a final decision yet, you know, on that specific, that specific vote, right? But as I said, they’re asking for $1.5 trillion. This war was a mistake. He got into this without a strategic goal. He got into this without thinking about the consequences to the American people and to our troops. We have 18 killed service members at this point. So I haven’t made a final decision on how I’m going to vote on that. But the way they’ve managed this so far has been a disaster.
Saturday on ALL THINGS CONSIDERED (NPR), Debbie Elliott spoke with the Harvard Kennedy School economist Linda Bilmes about Hegseth's request for more money for the Iran War:
ELLIOTT: So what do you make of that whopping $37 1/2 billion number from Hegseth?
BILMES: Well, when I think about the war costs, there are four categories. There's the very up-front short-term operations, then the medium-term costs, the long-term costs and the economic costs. And the 37 billion that Secretary Hegseth cited is just the very tippy-tippy-tip of the cusp - iceberg. So Mr. Hegseth is basing this figure primarily on the historical cost of the ammunitions that have been used up. But in fact, the replacement cost is at least 50% higher. For example, the Patriot interceptors that we have used up cost about 2 to 3 million each when we bought them, but the new ones, the replacements, cost 4 to 6 million. And the old Tomahawk missiles cost 1 million to 2 million, but the replacements cost 3 to 4 million.
ELLIOTT: So that's kind of like, let's say, you have to rebuild your house, and you don't have enough insurance to rebuild it because you've insured your house for what you paid 10 years ago to build it, right?
BILMES: Yeah, that's right. But in this case, it's even more extreme because of the fact that we also pay a significant surcharge to defense manufacturers because we're asking them to vastly expedite the new orders because we've used up our existing inventory at such a fast clip.
ELLIOTT: So what would you say a more accurate figure might be for the cost of this war?
BILMES: According to my analysis, the very up-front, short-term costs are, to date, about 120 billion. But that doesn't include another 250 billion for rebuilding the hundreds of U.S. facilities across the Middle East that have been destroyed or damaged. And then there are long-term costs and economic costs, which are the sort of base of the iceberg, and they are much larger.
ELLIOTT: Such as, like, caring for veterans? Is that what you're talking?
BILMES: I mean, one of the significant costs is caring for veterans, and here again, the administration has lowballed what we can expect in terms of cost. It has mentioned the several hundred troops who have been wounded in action, but it hasn't mentioned the 15-, 16-, 17,000 troops who have been exposed to contaminants and toxins and will be receiving lifetime disability benefits for breathing difficulties. It hasn't mentioned the several hundred troops that have been exposed to fire and inhaled smoke and were treated on the USS Gerald Ford when it had a huge fire. I mean, there are a whole series of costs related to veterans over their lifetimes. And remember that these veterans have an average age of 28.
ELLIOTT: But wouldn't the Pentagon be taking some of these factors into consideration as it presents its estimates to Congress?
BILMES: I mean, the Pentagon and, I think, countries throughout history tend not to think about the long-term costs. What is really the kicker here? I mean, countries throughout history tend to be optimistic. They think the war will be over faster than it is. They think it's going to cost less than it is. And what's very important to understand is that all of this money - the 37 billion that Hegseth is talking about, the 67 billion that has been requested, the 150 billion that was emergency money - all of this is being borrowed. And we also have to pay interest on the debt. This whole approach of paying for wars entirely through debt is entirely new in U.S. history after 2001. In all previous U.S. wars - the War of 1812, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, the Spanish-American War, the Korean War, the Vietnam War - we raised taxes a lot to pay for wars. But since 2001, we have borrowed all the money. But now what's different even than during Iraq and Afghanistan is that, as everyone who has borrowed any money knows, we are borrowing at much higher interest rates.
Let's wind down with this from Senator Alex Padilla's office:
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Alex Padilla (D-Calif.), a member of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee, alongside Ranking Member of the House Natural Resources Committee Jared Huffman (D-Calif.-02), Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), and Representatives Lateefah Simon (D-Calif.-12), John Garamendi (D-Calif.-08), and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.-17), called on the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to investigate the Trump Administration’s use of emergency national defense authorities and taxpayer funds to subsidize commercial coal infrastructure.
In a letter to the GAO Acting Comptroller General Orice Williams Brown, Padilla and his colleagues expressed concerns over the Department of Energy’s plan to use up to $425 million in Defense Production Act (DPA) funds to support coal-fired power plants and construct the West Gateway Terminal Project in Oakland, California. This terminal project would primarily serve foreign commercial markets, rather than meet national emergency needs.
“The DPA was intended to scale up domestic industrial capabilities to meet urgent military or national emergency needs; therefore, its invocation to construct a commercial, civilian export facility intended primarily to serve foreign commercial markets raises profound statutory, legal, and fiscal questions,” wrote the lawmakers. “We do not believe this satisfies the statutory definition of ‘national defense’ or ‘critical infrastructure protection’ under the DPA and that there is no legally sufficient, data-driven nexus between civilian coal exports and immediate U.S. military readiness or critical infrastructure defense.”
DPA funds are intended for U.S. national security and defense readiness. The Trump Administration is instead diverting these funds to support a commercial export project that primarily benefits private industries and foreign markets in East Asia.
“Congress has never appropriated funds to the DOE’s DPA account with the intent of propping up a dying industry or financing a purely commercial project,” continued the lawmakers. “We are deeply concerned that DOE has improperly diverted funds from accounts intended by Congress for the critical modernization and resilience support of our nation’s grid to instead finance a commercial fossil fuel export project.”
Padilla also raised concerns that the Trump Administration has improperly diverted funds designated for critical grid modernization and may be using emergency authorities to circumvent local environmental protections.
“With no clear national security nexus, we question whether the DOE utilized emergency DPA authorities with the intent of preempting or subverting valid local health ordinances and environmental regulations. If so, this would be a gross departure from the intent of the DPA,” concluded the lawmakers.
The lawmakers requested the GAO review the Trump Administration’s use of DPA funds to support coal projects and whether the Department acted within the authority Congress provided under the law.
Full text of the letter is available here and below:
Dear Acting Comptroller Williams Brown,
We write to request that the Government Accountability Office (GAO) examine the Department of Energy’s (DOE) efforts to use up to $425 million in Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III funds to support coal-fired power plants and the construction of the West Gateway Terminal Project (also referred to as the Oakland Bulk and Oversized Terminal) in Oakland, California.
On June 4, 2026, the Administration announced it would utilize emergency authorities under Title III of the DPA (50 U.S.C. § 4533) as part of a broader effort to subsidize commercial coal infrastructure. The DPA was intended to scale up domestic industrial capabilities to meet urgent military or national emergency needs; therefore, its invocation to construct a commercial, civilian export facility intended primarily to serve foreign commercial markets raises profound statutory, legal, and fiscal questions.
We do not believe this satisfies the statutory definition of “national defense” or “critical infrastructure protection” under the DPA and that there is no legally sufficient, data driven nexus between civilian coal exports and immediate U.S. military readiness or critical infrastructure defense
Under the DPA, the President’s authority to create, maintain, or expand domestic industrial capacity is strictly bound to actions that support the “national defense.” Section 702(14) of the Act defines national defense as “programs for military and space production or construction, military assistance to any foreign nation, stockpiling, space, and critical infrastructure protection and restoration.” However, the DOE’s stated justification for this award is to expand West Coast capacity to ship American coal to commercial markets in the Indo-Pacific region. Furthermore, Title III of the DPA dictates that the President cannot obligate funds to expand industrial capacity unless the President formally determines that the material or service is critical to the national defense, that U.S. industry cannot reasonably provide the capability in a timely manner, or that this action is the most cost-effective method of meeting the need.
Additionally, the Purpose Statute (31 U.S.C. § 1301) dictates that “appropriations shall be applied only to the objects for which the appropriations were made.” Congress has consistently appropriated funds to the DOE’s DPA account with the legislative intent of strengthening advanced manufacturing, grid components (such as large power transformers), and critical mineral supply chains. Congress has never appropriated funds to the DOE’s DPA account with the intent of propping up a dying industry or financing a purely commercial project. We are deeply concerned that DOE has improperly diverted funds from accounts intended by Congress for the critical modernization and resilience support of our nation’s grid to instead finance a commercial fossil fuel export project
Lastly, the West Gateway Terminal project has been the subject of intensive, decade long environmental and health litigation, driven by municipal bans on coal handling enacted to protect local communities from severe particulate pollution. With no clear national security nexus, we question whether the DOE utilized emergency DPA authorities with the intent of preempting or subverting valid local health ordinances and environmental regulations. If so, this would be a gross departure from the intent of the DPA.
Therefore, we request that you review the DOE’s use of DPA to support coal, including:
- How the DOE utilized DPA authorities to support the production, use, and export of coal, and
- The extent to which the DOE followed policies and procedures and utilized quality information and analysis in making determinations and selections with respect to supported DPA coal projects.
As part of the review, we ask that you consider internal communications, economic assessments, and legal memoranda generated by the DOE’s Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains and the White House regarding this project selection.
Sincerely,
###
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