THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The White House and MAGA exploded in fury after Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff pointed out during a speech that Donald Trump loves to “travel with Natalie” on the presidential jet. “Natalie,” of course, is Natalie Harp, the young aide whom Trump relies on heavily for emotional support and basically controls information flows to him. Yet despite all the fake MAGA outrage, Semafor reports that in fact, Trump’s own aides are “unnerved” by their closeness. That shows Ossoff is forcing a much-needed conversation over Trump’s sunsetting and the informational bubble he resides in daily. We talked to Paul Waldman, who wrote about this saga on his Substack, The Cross Section. We discuss how Ossoff stripped bare the realities of Trump’s sunsetting, why this is what actually got MAGA so furious, why this shows Democrats should make the midterms about Trump, and what it all says about how Democrats should fight the information wars.
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The 60-day deadline for a deal between Donald Trump and Iran has passed, and he’s in a lather over it. First Trump raged to Fox News of his displeasure with Oman’s negotiations with Iran over the Strait of Hormuz. “If Oman gets in the way, we’ll bomb the s--t out of them,” he fumed nonsensically. Then, under questioning over foreign policy, he erupted at a female journalist, repeatedly instructing her to “be quiet, be quiet, be quiet” in a vile and abusive tone. Meanwhile, officials leaked their pessimism about the war to Politico, saying things like “we never should have started this war” and revealingly admitting they have no idea what “winning” over Iran even means anymore. Translation: He lost. We talked to former Defense Department official Ariane Tabatabi. She explains the current standoff, why Trump’s rage at Oman is so absurd, how his megalomaniacal belief in his own limitless strength and power has backfired, and what might happen if Iran drags this out through the midterms.
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At a rally the other day, Donald Trump handed Democrats the perfect soundbite. “For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline,” Trump seethed, “just remember” it’s to deprive Iran of a nuclear weapon. He said higher prices are “okay,” and that “I will never apologize.” Trump’s angry sneering tone on the words “tiny little bit more” projected deep contempt for all who dare object to hardship imposed on them by his needless war, and the moment produced harsh media coverage. Separately, Trump curtly brushed off concerns among military families over long deployments and bad conditions on the U.S.S. Lincoln. We talked about all this with MS NOW’s Steve Benen, author of an interesting piece on Trump’s refusal to ever admit error. We discuss how Trump’s lifelong penchant for faking expertise is catching up with him, how Democrats can exploit this new self-own, and why political conditions suddenly resemble those that brought down George W. Bush in his second term.
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Intriguingly, Fox News has lately been hitting Donald Trump with terrible polling news. In recent days, Fox has found Democrats slightly ahead in Senate races in Maine, Texas, and Iowa, and up by a lot in North Carolina. Critically, Trump’s own favorability numbers are very bad in all those states, even though he won three of them, two by double digits. In all four, his numbers among independents are shockingly awful. Meanwhile, on the Iran war—which is central to why his standing is cratering—Trump aides are privately feeding him hopium. The Atlantic reports that they’re showing him data on Iran’s economy, which supposedly illustrates that if he does nothing and bides his time, Iran will surrender any day now. Doing nothing is the smart play, sir! Yet as Democratic strategist Caitlin Legacki argues in this episode, Trump’s inaction on Iran is a big albatross for GOP Senate candidates. Legacki explains why Iran is central to the battle for the Senate, why those Fox polls should give Democrats grounds for cautious optimism, and what could still go wrong for them.
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By now you’ve heard that when Donald Trump left the NATO summit in Turkey last month, he was clandestinely transferred from Air Force One to an alternative plane to avert a credible Iranian threat. It appears many of his cabinet members were left on Air Force One. Now new leaks make the story look darker: It turns out Trump brought several of the aides who are personally closest to him on the safe alternative flight. This, even as he left numerous journalists on the original plane, which effectively turned them into a decoy that might have been targeted. None were informed of the operation. It all perfectly captures Trump’s contempt for the media, so we talked to Margaret Sullivan, author of the excellent press-critiquing Substack “American Crisis.” She explains why this saga is so irregular, why the media faces a moment of uncommon challenges, and why journalists often won’t directly confront authoritarianism, even when it gravely threatens their own institution.
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