This is an adapted excerpt from the June 3 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
As the midterms come into view, basically every major problem Donald Trump has caused remains unresolved.
The war with Iran is ongoing and, despite claims of a so-called ceasefire, there are strikes basically every day. The Strait of Hormuz remains under Iranian control. As a result, gas prices remain high, with the constant risk that they could go even higher. And Trump is completely uninterested in doing anything about the larger issue of affordability. All of which is eroding his popular support.
There is this interesting paradox we are seeing: Trump’s revenge tour against Republicans he thinks aren’t loyal enough is actually making him weaker.
According to the latest Economist-YouGov poll, a record 61% of Americans disapprove of how Trump is handling his job as president. Right now, he is much less popular than he was at this point during his first term, before the 2018 midterm elections.
This is why Republicans are so spooked about the upcoming midterms. You can see it in how they are acting now in Congress. There is this interesting paradox we are seeing: Trump’s revenge tour against Republicans he thinks aren’t loyal enough is actually making him weaker.
Let me explain. Trump has a strong grip on Republican primary voters — though his preferred candidate did lose the gubernatorial primary in Iowa on Tuesday, so maybe that is slipping a bit — so he was able to unseat Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, as well as Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky. He also basically forced Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina into early retirement, because he almost certainly would have lost a primary challenge to a MAGA opponent.
But here’s the thing. All of those guys are still in Congress until next January. They don’t just disappear when they lose their primaries or announce their retirement. And right now, they are not very pleased with Trump.
Despite being deeply conservative politicians, I don’t think any one of them is particularly eager to bail Trump out in Congress — especially when it comes to the most egregious parts of this president’s agenda.
Like his slush fund for Jan. 6 rioters, which the acting attorney general now says is dead. Cassidy and Tillis have both been outspoken against it, with the latter using a particularly novel turn of phrase to describe it. “I’m not going to be an attorney and judge its legality, but I think it’s stupid on stilts,” Tillis said of the fund.
And now, after losing his primary last week, Cornyn has conveniently found his own backbone. The Texas Republican shared a quote from a piece by The Wall Street Journal editorial board on X, encouraging lawmakers to vote down such a proposal. “The way to ensure the fund is more than mostly dead would be for Congress to put a stake through it,” the post read.
Of course, Trump being Trump, as soon as he appeared to back away from the slush fund, he brought forth another equally ridiculous proposal.
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He wants to put Bill Pulte, his mortgage-fraud attack dog, in charge of all 18 intelligence agencies in this country. Pulte is completely unqualified. There is real concern that he could abuse his office and use it to persecute and spy on Trump’s domestic political critics.
On the one hand, it should not take the end of their political careers to inspire these Republicans to speak out. But on the other hand, it is somewhat satisfying to see Trump stymied by a problem of his own making.
And the president’s spurned senators aren’t afraid to call it out anymore. Cassidy and Tillis both spoke out against naming Pulte as the new director of national intelligence.
They’re not alone. It seems likely there could be further “no” votes from senators like Susan Collins of Maine, who is up for re-election, and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Even Senate Majority Leader John Thune conceded that Pulte would face an uphill confirmation battle.
On the one hand, it should not take the end of their political careers to inspire these Republicans to speak out. They should have been doing it from the very beginning, especially when it comes to the truly egregious actions of this administration. But on the other hand, it is somewhat satisfying to see Trump stymied by a problem of his own making.
On Wednesday, the Senate bucked him by removing the funding for his precious ballroom from their spending bill, which is basically the only thing he cares about. Trump could veto the Republicans’ own party-line bill as a result.
It is entirely possible that pretty much all of his agenda could be dead on arrival for the rest of this Congress. And then, assuming Democrats can flip the House in November, his legislative agenda could also be dead on arrival for the remainder of his presidency.
Trump has squandered a year of a political trifecta because his need for petty revenge outweighed everything else. The tighter he grips the party, the harder the backlash. And the more people he purges, the more he creates the conditions for folks to break free.
Allison Detzel contributed.
Chris Hayes hosts “All In with Chris Hayes” at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday through Friday on MS NOW. He is the editor-at-large at The Nation. A former fellow at Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Foundation Center for Ethics, Hayes was a Bernard Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. His latest book is “The Sirens’ Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource” (Penguin Press).