THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

Former attorney general Pam Bondi testified behind closed doors Friday about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. She effectively let it be known that Todd Blanche, now acting AG, has been responsible for this debacle, creating a new inquiry for Democrats to pursue that will be fraught for Trump. Bondi also went mum on how Trump instructed her to handle the Epstein files, basically declining to back Trump’s spin that he was pro-transparency, raising still more questions for Democrats to pursue. Meanwhile, Trump’s sinking approval, Iran debacle, ballroom and slush fund are fracturing Trumpworld and the GOP: One Republican told The Atlantic that he has “lame-ducked himself.” We talked to historian Nicole Hemmer, author of several books about the right. We discuss why the Epstein scandal continues to fracture the MAGA movement, the deeper reasons for Trump’s weakening hold on the GOP, and why MAGA will go into deep turmoil once Trump passes from the scene. 

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For days, activists have been protesting terrible conditions at an ICE facility in New Jersey. In response, Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin is now threatening to pull Customs and Border Protection officers from airports in sanctuary cities, which could halt international flights to them. As even Fox News is pointing out, this would cause massive disruptions. Indeed, it would likely deal another big blow to GOP midterm chances. Yet the whole saga captures how Trump governance seeks to deliberately stoke searing tensions between MAGA and blue America. We talked to Nayna Gupta, policy director for the American Immigration Council, which just released a blueprint for a saner system. We discuss the worsening situation in Newark, why Mullin’s threat is simultaneously deranged and comical, and how the fascist advisers around Trump see violent conflict between MAGA and blue America as a good and desirable outcome. 

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“I don’t care about the midterms,” Donald Trump admitted during a monologue about his Iran war. In addition to candidly declaring that he doesn’t care that his policies are badly imperiling his GOP colleagues, Trump also suggested that the GOP nomination of MAGA whackjob Ken Paxton in Texas—which Trump engineered—was a major accomplishment. This accidentally showed that Trump is still under the delusion that he and MAGA are popular. Yet this comes as The New York Times reports that Republicans are freshly “alarmed,” with some admitting that Trump is putting them in severe danger. We talked to New Republic contributing editor Felipe De La Hoz, who’s been arguing that Trump’s historic unpopularity gives Democrats new openings. We discuss how Texas is now winnable for Democrats, why Republicans are accepting Trump’s destruction of their midterm hopes, and what Democrats can do to capitalize on Trump’s travails. 

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After Donald Trump attended his physical, he proclaimed his health perfect. Then the White House rapid response team—which leads the charge for Trumpworld—unleashed an extraordinary series of angry attacks on journalists. Their transgression? Reporting accurately on Trump’s decline. This comes as Trump’s physical exam has prompted brutal coverage of his deterioration. We’ve seen scalding on-air assessments of his health from doctors, as well as media coverage that meticulously lists out the symptoms of his decline and notes his lack of transparency about exam results. Like good little authoritarians, Trump and his propagandists feel compelled to portray him as a physical superman whose virility is unquestioned—but this just reminds everyone of what they can see with their own eyes. We talked to Michael Cohen, who writes well about Trump’s weakness for his Substack, Truth and Consequences. We discuss why the cult of Trump’s virility is backfiring and what it says about the failings of Trumpworld’s broader totalitarian playbook.

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GOP discomfort with Donald Trump is growing. Republicans have effectively blocked taxpayer money for his ballroom, revolted against his corrupt slush fund for insurrectionists, and turned against his war. GOP panic about the his cratering approval and the midterm elections has reportedly escalated amid the ballroom and slush fund dramas. Amid mounting GOP opposition, Trump let out a strange, self-pitying Truth Social rant about his ballroom. Then at a rally he unleashed a weird tirade about the stock market and another bizarrely manic-sounding one about affordability. The rants only underscored how disconnected he is from the reality of voters’ economic experiences. We talked to New Republic deputy editor Jason Linkins, who’s been writing well about Trump’s corruption as a major political vulnerability. We discuss Trump’s growing mania, why these stories are uniquely difficult for Republicans to defend, and why Americans’ experience of the economy poses a potentially unsolvable political problem for the GOP. 

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