Experts in authoritarianism advise to keep a list of things subtly changing around you, so you’ll remember.
This was a disastrous week for Trump. Little is going his way, and the American people are increasingly turning against him. Trump continued to focus on his personal priorities, not issues that his party wants 100 days away from midterm elections, and not on what the American people want either. Nearly three-quarters of Americans said Trump was not paying attention to the country’s important issues, like the economy and affordability. Although Trump had promised his Iran “excursion” would last mere weeks, months later he is caught in an increasingly unpopular quagmire of a war.
Trump suffered setbacks in a number of legal battles this week, including being forced to withdraw subpoenas of NYT reporters; losing an appeal on his efforts to thwart mail-in voting; a judge requiring significant financial disclosures in his BBC lawsuit; a long pause on Paramount’s proposed takeover of Warner Bros., parent company of CNN; and more.
At a rescheduled White House Correspondents Dinner, Trump gave a rambling, insult-laden keynote, which fell flat. The irony of the mission of the association being to defend the First Amendment, while Trump continued to use the levers of his regime to attack both journalists and media outlets, left some attendees wondering if at long last it was time to “rethink” the dinner, or consider other alternatives while an autocrat was in office.
A CNN/SSRS poll found Trump’s approval had dropped to 34%, matching his low point after the Jan. 6 insurrection, with 66% disapproving and half strongly disapproving. His approval with Republicans fell to a low of 78%, with just 19% enthusiastic.
A record 73% said Trump was not paying attention to the country’s important issues, 58% were dissatisfied with or angry about his DC construction projects, and just 26% said he had a clear plan for the Iran War. His approval on all economic and affordability issues was in the 20s.
Gallup polling found Supreme Court approval at 33%, a record low since the poll began in 2000; 62% approved. The recent fall came among Republicans whose approval fell from 79% last September to 58%. Just 35% of Independents and 12% of Democrats approved of the court.
NYT reported that in a court document filed on July 15, the Trump regime admitted that it had terminated grants for education, energy, health, housing, and infrastructure aid “based solely” on whether the state had voted for Trump or Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.
In the fall of 2025, the Energy Department compiled a list of more than 600 grants awarded by the Biden administration. Russell Vought’s Office of Management and Budget terminated only 284 of those grants, all except one of which was in states that voted for Harris.
On Wednesday, during the dignified transfer of U.S. troops killed in the Iran War at Dover Air Force Base, Trump baselessly claimed of the fallen soldiers, “All of them said very strongly, ‘We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon,’” seeming to use their deaths to make a case for his war.
Later Wednesday, speaking at a policy speech in Georgia meant to focus on Trump Accounts, he did not mention the accounts until 30 minutes in. Many Republicans had worried that Trump would use the speech to advance his baseless claims he won the state in 2020, but he did not.
Trump continued to baselessly claim that Democrats made up “affordability,” and again tied Democrats to communism, saying, “The blue states are all going bad. They’re all going bad because communism is a loser,” adding, “With communism, everything turns to shit.”
Trump referred to the Iran War as a “skirmish” not a war, saying, “This skirmish we have going on, I call it a skirmish. This skirmish we have with the Islamic Republic of Iran, and I call it that because let me tell you, they’re getting hit so hard, they want to make a deal.”
Trump also plugged products made by Dell, the company whose owner had donated $6 billion to Trump Accounts, saying, “Go out and buy a Dell computer.” Shortly after his remarks, the stock soared by more than 7%.
On Wednesday, WAPO reported the Trump regime was considering military action in Mali to target JNIM, an al-Qaeda-affiliated group; although there is disagreement among the regime. If Trump ordered a strike, it would be the eighth country struck during his second regime.
