Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
That GOP trap—whether or not to run with Trump—perfectly captures how the GOP’s uncritical embrace of the president is backfiring in just about every way. So we’re talking about it all with Mona Charen, a writer for The Bulwark, who has a good piece arguing that gas prices and corruption are combining to hurt Republicans in hidden ways. Mona, thanks for coming on.
Sargent: So let’s start with this analysis from CNN’s Harry Enten. Here he’s talking about disapproval of presidents on gas prices. Listen.
Sargent: So to quickly recap, Trump’s disapproval on gas prices is 79 percent—higher than any other president. And later in the analysis, Harry Enten notes that 85 percent of independents and even 52 percent of Republicans disapprove. Abysmal numbers. Mona, your reaction to those?
They gave him a break. They didn’t hold him responsible for the COVID virus. There are many things that they thought were out of his control and therefore they didn’t hold him accountable. But this is so clear. And not only did he launch this war, but he did so without ever making a case for it to the American people, without getting any congressional buy-in, far less a declaration of war. And so, yeah, if it’s causing pain, people know exactly who to blame.
The closure of the Strait of Hormuz—which is where 20 percent of the world’s oil traffics through—is very clearly the reason for the price spikes all around the world. And everybody can see it with total clarity, and you just don’t often get something so clearly cut where a president is so clearly on the hook for what’s happening to voters directly, do you?
But in this case, it could not be clearer. And beyond that, it is a violation of Trump’s key promise that he made during the 2024 campaign—that he was going to tackle inflation. Now, of course, his promises were ridiculous. But he did make that claim when he was running, that he would bring down prices across the board. And he has clearly not only not delivered on that, he’s counter-delivered. Prices are up, not down.
Now that’s supposed to mean the House majority—MAGA Majority—but some vulnerable Republicans don’t like it, according to NBC, because MAGA is toxic and because the terminology centralizes Trump too much. Mona, they finally figured out that Trump is toxic. What do you make of that?
Now I should just add a caveat, though, Greg. Let’s face the fact that the Republicans are attempting to cheat their way out of this and they are having quite a bit of success. The combination of the willingness of the legislatures in Texas and other states to gerrymander, the fact that Virginia’s counter-gerrymander has now been ruled unconstitutional by the state court of Virginia—and just FYI, I will just add, though people are saying they want to take this to the United States Supreme Court, I am very dubious that that would go anywhere because state Supreme Courts are almost always held to be the experts on their own state constitutions. The Republicans are now in a position where even though they are desperately unpopular, even though MAGA is toxic, as you say, it is still possible that they could hold on.
That is really unfortunate and it’s absurdly unfair and disgusting and all the rest of it, but it is doable. Most midterms in memory that have taken place with an unpopular president have delivered a larger win than that. So I really do think it’s possible.
So I personally believe that the best way to do that—and I think it’s been demonstrated around the country—is you tailor your candidate to the district and make sure that you have people who are acceptable. You don’t have to give up all your principles. You don’t have to remake yourself into MAGA. But you have to be somebody who doesn’t send independents running for the hills.
Sargent: There’s been a crush of new reporting about Trump’s corruption of late. I just want to point out, independents hate corruption. We just learned some truly shocking news. The New York Times reports that the White House is in talks with the Justice Department in which DOJ would agree to settle a lawsuit that Trump brought against the IRS previously for billions of dollars over his leaked tax returns. Mona, this is an unbelievable story.
Charen: I mean, it is gobsmacking. And, you know, they want us to be lulled into a kind of hopelessness about all of this. And it’s easy to see how that can happen, but we have to fight it. This is an outrageous theft. He is attempting to raid the U.S. Treasury for billions. Now, I can’t imagine that even his own IRS and his own Justice Department will go for billions, but we’ll see.
I saw this recently in Hungary, where Viktor Orbán, the poster child of the post-liberal movement on the right, everybody’s favorite—certainly Trump’s favorite—dictator. He was quite a dictator, because he was a member of the EU and you have to add that. He wasn’t actually putting his opponents in jail.
And we’ve seen this in a number of countries, seen it in our own country. I mean, arguably Bill Clinton engaged in really reprehensible conduct as president with women, and people were willing to shrug it off because the economy was roaring. And now, you know, Trump—people knew in 2024 when they voted for him that Trump was corrupt.
Sargent: And not only that, the corruption news is multiplying on other fronts as well. We’re hearing that the ballroom is now going to cost a billion dollars. And let’s recall that he unilaterally and probably illegally bulldozed the White House East Wing to build this thing. There are also dubious things going on with the contracting on the reflecting pool project. And then there’s the corrupt lawsuit. I want to get at your point...
Sargent: Of course.
Few months later, he says, well, it’s actually going to be much bigger and it’s going to be $400 million, but don’t worry, it’s all going to be paid for by private contributions—which is corrupt enough by itself, right? Because people can buy favors by contributing to his ballroom. But now the Republicans in the Congress, in the Senate, are saying they want the taxpayers to spend a billion dollars on this ballroom. So so much for the taxpayers won’t be on the hook. Anyway, just wanted to get that off my chest.
It’s extraordinarily vivid because the combination you brought up of the gas prices and the corruption—it’s very clear right now because things are going to shit all over the place, even as Trump is obsessing over all these corrupt monument schemes in a very public way. It’s not like it’s being hidden. It’s right out in public in just about every conceivable way. That’s new, isn’t it? In some ways.
The other is when they do not—so if people think that the stories about corruption are just partisanship, they think everybody does it, and there go those Democrats again, criticizing the president, they’ll criticize him no matter what he does, et cetera. If you can get by on that, then you can slide. But the fact is, it isn’t the Democrats right now who are fronting the corruption. It’s Trump himself and his toadies.
Honestly, I don’t know, Greg, about you, but I want to go lie down in front of the bulldozers on that one. But he is the one who’s elevating this. I don’t think the Trump of the first term was doing this kind of thing. Back then, it was like signing his name on the stimulus checks and making sure he could claim credit for anything that went to the taxpayer. But this time it’s all about me, baby.
Charen: Oh, I’m not saying there wasn’t corruption. There was, but it was quieter. What he’s doing now is like he’s using a bullhorn to draw our attention to it.
What do you think, Mona? Is that how you see this playing out? Is it basically that they’re not going to really be able to get prices down in a general sense and are Republicans likely toast?
As for whether Republicans are toast, I would just say this. In all likelihood, they’re going to have a bad year. Democrats should be doing everything possible to make it a terrible year. But this is going to be a long-term struggle that we are in against illiberalism and quasi-fascism. And it ain’t going to be over in November.
Charen: Likewise. Great to see you, Greg.
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