THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

Donald Trump is stewing about elections big time. He raged at Senator Lisa Murkowski for opposing his dumb effort to rig the Alaska Senate race, fumed over imagined voter-fraud in the upcoming midterms, and seethed that the right’s huge loss in Brazil was “rigged.” It’s no accident that this unraveling comes as the early-voting data looks so dubious for the GOP that even some MAGA data analysts seem rattled by it. One leading MAGA figure admitted she’s refraining from posting the early-vote numbers because they’ll hurt the right’s “morale.” Another acknowledged that the electorate looks far too nonwhite for the GOP and urged Republicans to “step it up.” A third fretted that Trump’s campaigning is backfiring. We talked to Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg, who closely tracks early voting at his Hopium Chronicles Substack. He walks us through the massively encouraging signs in the data for Democrats, details what we can conclude from it and what we can’t, talks about why the Senate could still stay Republican, and ponders how Democrats should close this out.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In dense and convoluted remarks, Donald Trump defended that disgusting ad in the Ohio gubernatorial race. The ad from Republican Vivek Ramaswamy featured the mother of Democrat Amy Acton calling her a liar. But it quickly emerged that Acton was apparently raped by her step-father, the mother’s husband. The move backfired spectacularly, as numerous Republicans, including Ohio governor Mike DeWine strongly condemned the ad and GOP panic over the race erupted. Even MAGA appears divided. We talked to Jim Swift, a senior editor at The Bulwark, who wrote a good piece on this fiasco. We discuss the deeper reasons Ramaswamy decided this ad would energize the MAGA base, how it could cost Republicans the Ohio gubernatorial and Senate contests, and what this ugly saga says about the depravity of Late-Stage MAGA and the growing mainstream backlash to it.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With less than two weeks until Election Day, the Michigan Senate race is more or less on a knife’s edge. Amid all this, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed has had some hugely viral moments lately, tangling with a MAGA plant over a question about the Muslim Brotherhood and battling with JD Vance over the vice president’s vile attacks on him. We think El-Sayed is developing an interesting way of doing politics that seems attuned to the information wars of the Trump era. Will it work in a swingy state that’s coming down to the wire? We talked to El-Sayed about the state of the race, the affordability crisis, his high-profile viral battles, and how it all reflects his deeper theory of politics in the Trump-MAGA era. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In recent days, Donald Trump has exploded over James Talarico’s Senate candidacy in Texas. In a long, tortured tirade, Trump repeatedly called him “James TalaFREAKO” and raged at Karl Rove for supposedly wanting Ken Paxton to lose. He even ordered Fox to stop airing Rove. In another tirade, he fumed that Paxton is the “greatest attorney general” in Texas’s history and angrily wondered why Talarico hasn’t been defeated already. Meanwhile, in a striking exchange, a Fox anchor and a GOP Congressman appeared rattled as they wondered aloud why Texans appear prepared to vote for Talarico despite him obviously being a woke leftist whackjob. Translation: Why, oh why, aren’t MAGA-GOP smears working? We talked to Texas-based Democratic strategist Nancy Zdunkewicz. She explains the deeper reasons why attacks on Talarico aren’t sticking, walks through the state of play in the race’s final days, and grapples with whether the tightening polls amid the GOP’s avalanche of home-stretch spending should worry Democrats. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Earlier this week, Donald Trump made some audacious claims. He insisted at length that his rallies are having a “tremendously positive impact” on Republicans’ chances in the midterms, because it causes their support to “go up.” He also insisted costs are plummeting. But on Wednesday, the new Consumer Price Index report demolished that claim by showing inflation getting worse. Meanwhile, numerous Republicans leaked to Politico that the House is all but lost. And critically, they cited Trump as the main overarching reason for this. As one lamented: “Trump has made this election all about himself.” Another griped that “the biggest problem” is Trump’s “unfavorables.” That wrecks his boast about his rallies, too. We talked to MS NOW’s Steve Benen, author of a good piece about the hollowness of Trump’s bragging. We discuss why Trump’s public standing is uniquely bad, look at how the GOP’s latest money moves show Republicans believe the bad polling news, and dig into the true state of the Senate map.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Sarah Longwell of The Bulwark recently held a focus group with people who voted for Donald Trump in 2024 that took an extraordinary turn. After being shown Trump’s vile taxpayer-funded ad, in which he rages about expelling “globalists” and “Marxists” and the “fake news media,” they were revolted. They called Trump “despicable” and “power hungry” and a “narcissist” who spews  “nothing but lies.” We think this suggests Trump may be alienating right-leaning voters not just over costs, but with his totalitarian-dictator rule as well. So we talked to political theorist Paul Crider about the possibilities this focus group raises. We discuss his new piece arguing for the creation of a broad anti-corruption, anti-authoritarian coalition, dissect new GOP panic about losses in deep red areas, ask whether Trump’s dictator-megalomania is turning even those places against Trump, and examine how Democrats are creating a new politics in response to it all.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In today’s episode, nonpartisan political forecaster Kyle Kondik makes some critical points about Donald Trump’s approval rating. First, it may be so low that he’s even underwater in House districts that he carried by double digits. Second, unlike in 2018, his approval is underwater in red states with big Senate races. Indeed, the latest polling averages have him sinking below 35 percent, a key threshold. And Times polling finds him upside down in five Senate-race states he carried by double digits. Taken together, it’s clear his public standing is unraveling. Meanwhile, GOP leaks are growing deafening. One GOP operative said: “If the bottom continues falling out like it has been, this will be worse than 2006.” Worse than the GOP’s epic 2006 losses under George W. Bush! For the straight story on the state of the House map, we talked to Kondik, managing director at Sabato’s Crystal Ball. He explains how Trump’s low approval is expanding the map for Democrats in surprising ways, interprets the latest GOP spending in deep red areas, and why he thinks Democrats might end up with 230 House seats. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump has been holding rallies in red states, and in a pair of articles, The New York Times reported that his crowd sizes have been diminishing. This triggered an epic tirade from Trump: He raged that his rallies are “PACKED” and claimed they are “HOTTER” than ever. He even accused the media of dishonestly ignoring their “thunderous applause” from “thousands and thousands of people.” This comes as Republicans themselves admit that the rallies actually reveal the weakness of the Trump-GOP position, which is requiring Trump to desperately energize his most loyal supporters to salvage races in deep-red areas. As one Republican told CNN: “This is a five-alarm fire.” We talked to Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, who’s been writing well about Trump’s struggles with his unpopularity. We dig into the latest polling showing red-state Senate races trending Democratic, discuss whether GOP-leaning voters will really be able to support Democrats, and look at how MAGA may be getting deenergized by Trump’s failure to vanquish liberals in the culture wars.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This week, GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton privately admitted that Donald Trump’s midterm convention in Texas was a serious problem for the state’s Republican candidates. Asked about this, Trump unleashed a long, tortured monologue, and it was revealing. He kept returning to the number of viewers that he got at the convention, and kept repeating that he won Texas multiple times. He can only see this in terms of how he fared there, with no regard for GOP candidates. We think that Trump’s inability to clearly perceive his own standing with voters is a genuinely serious, far-reaching problem for Republicans. So we talked to Madison Andrus, an official with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee who’s focused on the region. She shares new internal polling showing Democrats leading in key South Texas races, explains the shift away from Trump in the Rio Grande Valley and why it’s important, and discusses how broad the national map has gotten for Democrats. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump’s ban on a range of Canadian imports just went into effect, and The New York Times calls this a sign that the trade war has grown “vicious.” In a rambling tirade this week, Trump upped the ante in a dark way, calling Canada “one of the worst countries in the entire world.” Trump also said almost in passing that we get along with China better than we get along with Canada. We think it shouldn’t pass unnoticed just how casually Trump will toss aside a longtime ally. Trump also unleashed his top trade adviser to say sneeringly nasty things about Canada and Canadians, another sign that MAGA nationalism is growing more malicious. Meanwhile, Republicans tell the Los Angeles Times that the trade war is really bad news for the GOP. In one focus group, almost all swing voters in Michigan opposed it. We talked to New Republic contributing editor Virginia Heffernan, who’s been writing well about the economic roots of GOP midterm woes. She explains why it’s so dumb of Trump to order Americans to hate Canada—and why it’s all tailor made to get MAGA-adjacent “diesel class” voters to turn on Trump.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A few days ago, Donald Trump exploded in an extended tirade at news organizations. Why? Because they had suspended TV pool coverage of him to show solidarity with three news outlets he’d banned from the White House. This resulted in no TV footage of his reception of Xi Jinping at the White House. Trump absurdly raged that news orgs were trying to deny him coverage of a major success. But in saying this, he actually revealed that he badly needs the attention of news outlets. Without this attention, he shrivels. His fury shows that if news orgs collectively join together to resist things like his press ban—which has now been blocked in court—it can actually work. We talked to Paul Waldman, author of a good piece on Trump’s diminishing stature. We discuss the ways Trump’s power is a media creation, why this saga shows we need more collective institutional resistance to him, and what that might look like as he keeps shrinking. (After we recorded, Trump banned just CNN more narrowly, excluding it from Air Force One, but it’s unclear whether that will last.) Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Out of the three news organizations that Donald Trump has banned from the White House, he reserves special fury for CNN. He erupted at reporter Kaitlan Collins, posting that she’s an “unhappy person” and a “SLEAZEBAG” who suffers from a “TRUMP addiction.” He also tried to humiliate Collins in person at the United Nations. And he posted a video mocking CNN reporters in truly dumb and juvenile terms. This comes as legal experts have picked apart the White House’s case for the ban. It now rests partly on specious claims about national security, and the details are monumentally absurd. We talked to New Republic staff writer Timothy Noah, who has written well on this saga. We discuss why the White House legal case is so weak, how Trump’s ongoing diminishment is encouraging institutional resistance to him, why his decline will worsen, and why people should stop treating him as invincible. (After we recorded, a judge seemed skeptical of the White House’s arguments.)  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Donald Trump’s efforts to ban news organizations from the White House are backfiring. Trump said straight out that he barred them because their coverage displeased him, and when the outlets sued on Monday, they cited his own words as proof that he’d retaliated against their reporting. That’s likely to work. And other news outlets sided with them, suspending pooled coverage and resulting in Trump getting less TV attention. Meanwhile, Axios reports that Trump advisers confide that they fear he’s feeling “powerless” as his losses pile up and a likely midterm defeat approaches. He’s retreating “to his worst impulses” and this “helps explain” his press ban, per Axios: Because Trump feels his power slipping away, he “lashed out” at these organizations and banned them. That’s surely correct, and it’s humiliating. We talked to Kristy Parker, counsel at Protect Democracy. She explains why Trump’s ban probably won’t survive the courts, why his lashing out at moments of feeling powerless makes him so dangerous, and why she’s cautiously optimistic about our system holding.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices