The Trump Presidency Is Going Great

Donald Trump, live from the Oval Office cosplay set, has discovered the real problem in Iowa: not farmers “bleeding money,” not trucking businesses collapsing under fuel and fertilizer costs from the Iran war, but polls. Which are, naturally, “fake.” Reality may be hammering Iowa Republicans in competitive races, but Trump’s solution is to declare himself extremely popular and unveil a $15 billion steel plant like he’s giving away a yacht on a game show.

While an Iowa farmer goes on MSNOW to explain that small businesses and farms are getting financially gutted in real time, Trump shrugs it off and blames Democrats for “very bad” things, without bothering with specifics or policy. Instead, he offers the usual magic-beanstalk economics: a massive steel project no one asked for, in a state that mainly needs affordable inputs and stable markets, not a presidential monument made of rebar. Farmers are begging for relief; Trump is bragging about his vote totals and insisting he’s “more popular now” as his approval sinks. It’s less economic strategy than a hostage video from an alternate universe.

So Iowa gets soaring costs, collapsing margins, and a president who thinks announcing a mystery megaproject fixes everything. The farmers are “bleeding money.” Trump is bleeding poll numbers. And somehow, his only diagnosis is that the thermometer is lying.

Texas cattle ranchers are discovering that when Donald Trump said he’d put America first, he apparently meant "after imported beef." NBC reports that Trump’s push to expand beef imports is colliding head-on with the people who spent years cheering for his trade wars, his tariffs, and his big sweaty promises to protect American agriculture. Shockingly, it turns out that when corporate meatpackers want cheaper product, the populist cosplay stops at the ranch gate.

Instead of backing the folks actually raising cattle in Texas, the administration is clearing the way for more foreign beef to roll in while rural producers watch their prices get trampled. The same politicians who once staged photo ops in cowboy hats to rail against "globalist elites" are now quietly fine with those elites squeezing U.S. ranchers, as long as the checks keep clearing and the base keeps getting distracted by culture-war rodeos.

This is the MAGA economic model in action: scream about "border security" while importing the livelihoods of your own voters, then act shocked when the people who believed you start doing the political equivalent of open-carrying their anger on cable news. The cattle may be branded, but the ranchers are the ones getting burned.

Byron Donalds is out here doing the political equivalent of hiding the MAGA hat in the glove compartment when you pull into a blue neighborhood. His Florida governor campaign quietly scrubbed the giant "Enact the Trump Agenda" banner and the big happy thumbs-up photo with Trump from his website, then turned around onstage and insisted he’s absolutely not backing away from the president. He’s just, you know, "reinforcing policy themes" like "Accountable, Achievable, Affordable!" — which sounds less like a governing vision and more like a used car warranty.

Previously, Donalds’ site looked like a Mar-a-Lago fan page: Trump’s endorsement splashed across the homepage, Trump photo-op front and center, issues page headlined with a promise to implement the Trump agenda. Now, Trump has been demoted to a passing mention in a scrolling list of right-wing endorsements and a footnote about Donalds being a 2024 campaign surrogate, while the candidate insists this is all a totally normal, long-planned website refresh and definitely not panic about being chained to a wildly unpopular authoritarian chaos goblin.

Still, Donalds swears he loves the Trump agenda — "law and order," "sound markets," border crackdowns, and cozy coordination with the federal government on immigration. So the substance of Trumpism stays, the branding gets a soft wash, and the voters are supposed to believe this is about affordability and not about running from the radioactive orange glow just enough to survive a general election. Florida politics remains what it has become under Trump: one long loyalty test, with everyone pretending they’re just talking about grocery prices.

The Trump administration has finally noticed that child care is expensive and, in a stunning policy innovation, has decided to treat it like everything else: a culture war weapon with a tax deduction stapled to it. The White House is "eyeing" a proposal to give childcare subsidies specifically to married couples with a stay-at-home parent, because nothing says modern economic policy like telling women, single parents, and anyone whose life doesn’t look like a 1950s sitcom that they’re on their own.

Democrats are floating similar-sounding support with one small twist: theirs doesn’t require you to pass a marital purity test and pledge allegiance to the nuclear family cosplay hour. The bipartisan headline is "we agree families need help"; the fine print is "Republicans will only help if your household looks like a CPAC panel brochure." So yes, Washington has finally found common ground on child care — as long as Trump’s crew can use federal dollars to reward their preferred voters and nudge everyone else back into the socially acceptable box.

Maga America is discovering that when you elect a guy whose economic plan is basically a live-action YouTube prank, your grocery bill becomes the jump scare. Farmers, rural voters, manufacturing workers, and anyone trying to keep a roof over their head are all learning that Trump’s tariff cosplay and subsidy bonfire come with a helpful side of higher prices, lost jobs, and exploding debt. Turns out when you declare “liberation day” and slap tariffs on everything that moves, the market doesn’t applaud – it faceplants.

The Harris poll for the Guardian reads like a support group for people mauled by their own political choices. Majorities of self-identified Maga voters say they’re struggling or about to struggle with debt, housing, healthcare, utilities, groceries, and gas – basically every bill except the one for the red hat. Even among the faithful, more than half now blame the government for rising prices, and a growing chunk actually believes economists who say Americans, not mysterious foreigners, are paying Trump’s tariff tab. Yet despite all this, most Maga voters still think the same government kneecapping them can fix the affordability crisis it created. America’s abusive relationship with Trumpism remains strong – it’s just getting a lot more expensive.

Outside the cult perimeter fence, things look even worse for Trump. More Republicans think the economy is getting worse, independents are souring fast, and a Blue Wave is visible enough on the horizon that even the White House’s midterm-rigging fantasies might not hold it back. The punchline: for all the damage Trump has done, voters don’t trust Democrats either. Only about a quarter of stressed Americans think either party can fix any of this, and a healthy plurality has moved on to the “they’re all useless” stage of late-imperial politics. Trump has managed to prove government can absolutely hurt you; Democrats, so far, have failed to convincingly argue it could ever help.

Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo is learning the hard way that hitching your career to Donald Trump's economic brain trust (Kudlow and vibes) has consequences. Trump's policies are so wildly unpopular in the state that Lombardo, an actual sitting governor, is already being treated like a lame-duck extra in someone else's reality show.

The big drama now: Tuesday's primary will decide which Democrat gets to spend the fall replaying Nevada's bank statements and grocery receipts on loop while asking voters whether they're enjoying this particular season of "Making America Broke Again." Lombardo, meanwhile, gets to smile through gritted teeth and pretend Trump's agenda is going great as it saws through his own approval ratings.

Ryan Fournier, co-founder of Students for Trump and full-time culture warrior, has been arrested in Washington DC on domestic violence charges after allegedly waking up from an intoxicated stupor and responding to a woman trying to help him by swinging his fists at her face. Police say he was lying on the floor of his luxury apartment with a knife at his side, allegedly punched her two or three times, and reportedly announced, "I'll kill everyone here"—which is certainly one way to demonstrate those family values he’s always tweeting about.

A roommate told authorities Fournier screamed "Don’t touch me, woman!" and "Do you want me to crush your head in with this lamp?" before allegedly escalating to "Do you want to die today?" while swinging a handheld vacuum around like a low-budget WWE prop. The victim, according to the affidavit, ran to the bathroom looking like she'd been punched in the face and begged the roommate, "Don’t let him stab me," which is not typically listed on conservative student group brochures, but probably should be.

This is not Fournier’s first trip through the "law and order" experience: in 2023 he was arrested in North Carolina after allegedly grabbing his then-girlfriend and striking her in the forehead with a handgun. Those charges were later dismissed, presumably reinforcing the lesson that accountability is for poor people and liberals. In between arrests, Fournier found time to falsely accuse a Wisconsin school principal of celebrating Charlie Kirk’s death, prompting a wave of death threats against her—then quietly walked it back with a post about how "accuracy is critical," which is a bold line from a guy whose personal brand appears to be projection plus violence.

So the co-founder of Students for Trump is now facing his second domestic violence case in three years, still posturing as a patriotic truth-teller while allegedly terrorizing women behind closed doors. If you were designing a mascot for a movement obsessed with controlling women’s bodies, screaming about crime, and demanding absolute impunity for themselves, you honestly couldn’t script it better.

Donald Trump carried this New Hampshire district in 2024, so naturally in 2026 it just elected a Democrat by 4 points after a 13-point GOP margin last time. Bobbi Boudman, who previously lost twice to Republican Glenn Cordelli, finally won the seat once he fled the district, proving that the strongest Democratic field operation remains: Republicans moving away.

National Republicans and their dark-money friends like Americans for Prosperity dutifully backed GOP candidate Dale Fincher, then watched more than 4,000 voters politely respond: "No thanks, we’ve tried Trumpism, turns out it’s bad." This is the 28th seat Democrats have flipped since Trump’s 2024 win, while Republicans have flipped exactly zero, which is also the approximate number of lessons the party appears capable of learning.

Democrats are calling it part of a growing wave, with the DLCC openly planning the biggest state-level gains in two decades and the DNC chair saying that no Republican seat is safe. Meanwhile, state Republicans are discovering that running on soaring costs, culture war hysteria, and whatever Trump posted on Truth Social this morning might not be the electoral cheat code they were promised. Tuesdays are becoming a rolling referendum on the Trump agenda, and the voters keep hitting "reject call."