Trump's very bad day
Conversely, a great day for democracy!
Today brought a succession of political developments so delicious that I felt compelled to drop in here and catalog them for your evening reading pleasure, despite being so down and out with “Flu A” right now that I had to get an inhaler and lidocaine gargle from urgent care today.
I really do feel like hell, so I’m going to keep this Nightcap brief and bullet pointed:
Indiana Republicans have resoundingly rejected a new redistricting map, despite intense, mob-boss-style pressure from President Trump, that would have given Trump two new House seats by replacing the current 7(R)-2(D) map with a 9-0 map for Republicans. Trump carried the state by 19 points last year, but his approval numbers are currently underwater there, so he was essentially trying to strong-arm the state into eliminating Democratic participation altogether rather than having to face the voters in the midterms. Here are a couple of the tweets today from Trump’s allies trying to bully Indiana Republicans into passing the map (I can’t believe Don Jr.’s threat to come to the state didn’t work):
Well J.D., they chose a side: By a vote of 31 to 19, including one Republican senator who has a daughter with Down syndrome and who said he’d be voting no due to Trump repeatedly using the R-slur, Indiana rejected this antidemocratic gerrymander.
A clear sign of Trump losing his grip on his own party.
Trump’s DOJ has failed to indict New York Attorney General Tish James for a THIRD TIME on allegations of mortgage fraud. After a federal judge dismissed the case last month, two separate grand juries in Virginia have now declined to re-indict James, which marks a really embarrassing end to Trump’s revenge tour against a Black woman who successfully prosecuted him.
Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the immigrant whom the Trump administration mistakenly sent to a prison camp in El Salvador because of an “administrative error,” was ordered released from immigration detention today and plans to reunite with his wife and kid in Maryland.
The House passed the Protect America’s Workforce Act (H.R. 2550) today, which would restore collective bargaining rights to 1 million federal workers by reversing President Trump’s union-busting March executive order. The bill passed 231-195 with bipartisan support, and per the AFL-CIO, it is the first time the House has voted to overturn a Trump executive order this term.
Trump’s poll numbers reached record lows today, crashing out most notably on immigration and the economy, which used to be his strongest issues. Only 31% of U.S. adults now approve of how Trump is handling the economy, down from 40% in March, which is the lowest from his first or second term. He’s at 36% approval overall, which is pretty dismal for a president. And despite repeatedly claiming that he’s seeing record high approval ratings—whether or not because his team is shielding him from the real numbers—Trump finally appeared to be aware of the death drop today:
In short, Trump is weak. This regime is weak. They’re flailing and they’re losing, while trying to smash and destroy as many things as they can on the way out. It doesn’t mean the left can take the midterms for granted, but it means the midterms are still very much in play.