THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

Donald Trump has been raging at Marjorie Taylor Greene a lot lately. Why? Because improbably, Greene has emerged as a very effective critic of the president. In a striking CNN interview, Greene unloaded, declaring bluntly that Trump is mentally unfit for the presidency, that the people around Trump should rein him in, and that he’s catastrophically failing. This is a watershed moment: Trump’s disastrous Iran war, and his threat to obliterate Iranian civilization, are pushing some in MAGA to look past him. We talked to Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, author of a good piece arguing that the Iran debacle is a new kind of problem for Trump. We discuss why JD Vance won’t be able to escape its taint, why Trump’s threat of genocide is a breaking point for so many Americans, and why Greene’s criticism of Trump breaks surprising new ground. (After we recorded, Trump exploded in fury yet again at Greene and other critics.) Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The fragile ceasefire with Iran is not silencing the mounting questions about Donald Trump’s threat to wipe out Iranian civilization. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt lost her temper under hard questioning on the topic. One reporter sharply grilled her, causing her to dissemble and snap angrily. She then kept ranting, suggesting absurdly that it was “insulting” to be even asked about this matter. This comes as some Trump’s allies are sharply questioning his Iran deal: Laura Loomer lamented that “we didn’t really get anything.” Mark Levin fretted that Iran is “still surviving,” and said: “I don’t trust the enemy...what’s going to be different this time?” Senator Lindsey Graham made his skepticism of the deal very clear. Many other MAGA figures attacked his threat. We talked to Georgetown national security expert Rosa Brooks. She explains why Leavitt’s spin is so vile, why MAGA is right that the deal is a disaster for Trump (but for the wrong reasons), and why we should still fear worse horrors to come. 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 deranged threat to obliterate Iranian civilization entirely has prompted powerful pushback from some former MAGA allies. Some are suggesting it’s time to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove him, including Alex Jones, Anthony Scaramucci, and Marjorie Taylor Greene, who tweeted that “he has gone insane.” Tucker Carlson called on military officials not to follow illegal orders to attack civilian infrastructure. After we recorded, Trump temporarily postponed the assault. But the conversation about his unfitness has been reopened. We talked to Jennifer Rubin, editor-in-chief of The Contrarian and author of a good piece on Trump’s vow of genocide. We discuss the gravity of Trump’s war-crime threats, the cowardice of Republicans who keep enabling this madman, and how we can keep the removal talk alive. 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 is now facing tough questions about his threats to bomb Iranian power plants and bridges, which are growing more and more unhinged. On Monday he seethed at a reporter who asked pointed questions about this, attacking his news outlet and ranting that his colleagues seem to want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, Punchbowl News reports that Republicans may be at a “breaking point” with Trump over the war. All of which raises a question: If Trump seems ready to go through with massive war crimes, will Republicans be willing to rein him in at that point? We talked to Columbia political scientist Elizabeth Saunders, who had a hair-raising thread on Bluesky about where we are. She explains why Trump’s lashing out at the media should be taken seriously and why she sees this moment as uniquely dangerous. She also discusses how Trump boxed himself into a position of maximum destructiveness, what to expect from Republicans in response, and how to think about what’s next. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A frustrated Donald Trump is mulling more personnel changes, Politico reports, potentially targeting his Commerce and Labor secretaries. As one official confides: “He’s very angry and he’s going to be moving people.” The Politico piece depicts unnerved aides parsing his fury like tea leaves and disconcertedly leaking to reporters about who’s on “thin ice.” Crucially, Trump is mulling changes that would make him look better on the economy—where a new poll is absolutely brutal—and in hopes of getting them through before a midterm loss makes them harder. Indeed, Time reports that his advisers delivered bad news about internal polling showing that his midterm problems have taken a worse turn due to the war. We talked to New Republic staff writer Kate Aronoff, who writes well about the crises Trump is losing control over. We discuss why real-world complexities are so elusive to Trump and the real meaning of his ongoing collision with the limits of his magical thinking. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

During Donald Trump’s speech on Iran this week, he revealed too much. In a line that sounded partly ad-libbed, he declared that the Strait of Hormuz “will open up naturally. It will just open up naturally.” This should be read as a straight-up admission that Trump has no idea how to fix the colossal mess he’s made, and that he’s just washing his hands of it entirely. That’s utterly damning. Meanwhile, Politico reports that Republicans privately fear the speech did nothing to help them politically; as one put it: “What the hell did he just say?” Those things are related: The worse this war gets, the more it will hurt Republicans in the midterms. We talked to foreign policy writer and podcaster David Rothkopf, author of a good piece about the speech. We discuss Trump’s implicit admission of failure, the deeper reasons this is developing into such a fiasco, why it’s a trap for Republicans, and what the post-Trump Democratic Party should look like. 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 seems really mad. He exploded over birthright citizenship after his arguments on it fell flat in the Supreme Court. That came despite his decision to show up at the proceedings, another display of anger designed to bully the justices. He also raged at them over this earlier in the week. Meanwhile, Trump is angrily threatening our NATO allies for failing to bail him out by helping reopen the Strait of Hormuz. On top of all that, Trump just suffered a string of losses in the lower courts. And a new CNN poll finds his economic approval at a crushing 31 percent, with 27 percent approving of his handling of inflation. We talked to Corey Brettschneider, an expert on the presidency. He explains how all these failures are rooted in delusions of omnipotence, how Trump is coming face-to-face with the limits on his powers, why it matters that lower courts are performing heroically, and why the ultimate check on Trump is really the people. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The other day your faithful podcast host argued that Donald Trump’s presidency is in free fall in terms of public opinion. Now the signs are even clearer: His approval ratings have dropped below 40 percent in The New York Times’s polling averages and in two other sets of averages as well. That’s a critical milestone. Meanwhile, CNN’s Harry Enten powerfully points out that Trump has been on a steady, inexorable decline for months, and is now a net 45 points under water with independents. That’s worse than Richard Nixon during Watergate. And the millions who showed up to protest Trump and No Kings marches last weekend constituted perhaps the largest single-day protest in U.S. history. We talked to Leah Greenberg, co-founder of Indivisible, which organized the protests. She explains what surprised her about No Kings turnout in red areas, explores the deeper reasons that Trump is cratering on unlikely issues like immigration and war, and digs into what Democrats must do to sustain this energy through Election Day. 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 erupted in angry threats against Iran over the still-closed Strait of Hormuz, vowing to potentially bomb electric and desalination plants. In effect, Trump is threatening war crimes due to his own failure to anticipate closure of the strait. This comes after Pete Hegseth issued a widely-criticized prayer seeking God’s assistance in “overwhelming” violence against Iran, which Pope Leo has now sharply rebuked. That's telling: As scholar-of-religion Sarah Posner explains in today’s episode, the bloodlust drenching this war effort is in many ways the product of extreme theology: In particular, Hegseth’s Christian Reconstructionism. Posner, who hosts the excellent Reign of Error podcast, takes us through those radical theological ideas, explains the deeper roots of Hegseth-Trump-MAGA sadism toward perceived “enemies,” and details the hidden reasons the Pope’s criticism really matters. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A recent Wall Street Journal report reveals that Donald Trump now sees his mass deportations as a big political problem for him. He’s siding internally with advisers who worry that they’ve become a liability in the midterms. In this, Trump is clearly rebuking Miller and his agenda. New reporting from Politico further illuminates this dynamic, revealing fresh levels of infighting prompted largely by Miller’s unhinged demands. As Politico notes, this turmoil has already gotten Kristi Noem fired from the Department of Homeland Security, and all this leaking plainly reveals deep internal dissatisfaction over Miller’s tenure. We talked to Chris Newman, counsel at the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and a shrewd observer of Miller. He explains persuasively how we can divine Trump is souring on Miller and now sees his agenda as a potential liability, why Miller’s grand ideological project may be in trouble, and what it means that millions of Americans have taken to the streets to protest it. 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 is panicking about the midterm elections, leading him to unleash a series of rants on Truth Social. He raged at Republicans for failing to pass voter suppression legislation, urging them to “TERMINATE THE FILIBUSTER” to do so. He followed with a second all-caps tweet reiterating the demand. And he seethed a third time over the GOP failure. Remarkably, Trump doesn’t hide the fact that he sees this as the only way to save the midterms. You can see why: A Fox News poll finds Trump’s disapproval numbers at their highest ever, including a whopping 75 percent of independents, and a large majority opposing the Iran war. We talked to Ryan O’Donnell, executive director of Data for Progress, which has its own polling on all this. We discuss how the war is dovetailing with costs to create a double-whammy, why Trump’s tanking with independents is critical, what could still go wrong for Democrats, and why the high quality of Democratic candidates this cycle is an important tell. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Officials are leaking to NBC News that Donald Trump gets updates on the Iran war in video compilations of successful strikes. One official describes these sanitized montages as “stuff blowing up,” and Trump allies fear he’s being misled. That’s humiliating. By contrast, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is portraying him as a world-historical statesman: She just laughably claimed that he’s brilliant at uniting our allies behind him (the opposite of reality in this war). She asserted that the truth is whatever Trump says it is. And she obsequiously threatened that Trump will unleash “hell” on Iran, a juvenile and despicable way to inflate him into an imposing figure. We talked to Emily Horne, a veteran of the National Security Council and State Department who writes the Spin Class Substack. She explains why this isn’t how a president and White House should conduct themselves, reminds us what basic leadership should look like, and details why the Trump hagiography has boxed in the White House, making it harder to end the war by declaring victory. 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 tirades about Iran are getting uglier. He let out one rant that positively relished U.S. military domination of Iran and seethed about the media’s refusal to acknowledge his greatness. He unleashed a second tirade that dripped with bizarre triumphalism, angrily declaring the war “won,” which raises questions about why it’s continuing. And Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth delivered a rant that was drenched in bloodlust. This comes as a new Strength in Numbers/Verasight poll finds Trump’s approval at 37 percent and underwater on every issue, with majorities questioning the war’s most basic premises. That mirrors other new polls from CBS, Reuters, and NBC showing him in trouble and a recent Quinnipiac poll finding his coalition fracturing over the war. We talked to G. Elliott Morris, who runs the Strength in Numbers Substack. He explains why all the bloodlust is working against Trump, why public support for this war is so historically low, and why Democrats are leading comfortably in the battle for the House. 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 war on Iran appears to be a fiasco, and speaking to reporters, he made a surprising claim: He insisted no one anticipated that Iran would attack other countries in an effort to widen the war. But this was widely expected, and amusingly, in saying that, Trump revealed that he didn’t anticipate it. That’s a striking admission about his own lack of foresight. Which captures something broader: On many fronts, Trump didn’t prepare for eventualities that most experts fully did anticipate. Now Trump is lurching in all directions: First he threatened to bomb Iranian electric plants, then backtracked while claiming that “very strong talks” were underway, but Iran then flatly denied that. We talked to foreign policy expert Matt Duss, author of a piece on the intellectual failings behind this debacle. He explains why the latest developments are unnerving, how Trump’s personal and ideological shortcomings are working against America, and what he really revealed with that odd admission of failure. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices