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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hello and welcome to the Bulwark Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. It is Monday, so of course we have editor at large, author of the Morning Shots newsletter, Bill Kristol. Bill, you had some almost optimistic notes in the, in the newsletter this morning. I guess if bad news for Trump is good news for America and the pro democracy movement, you're focused on the polls, but you framed Trump's bad poll numbers up first by talking about what's happened down here in Louisiana. So let's start there. Bill Cassidy finished third in the Senate primary here, I should note, quick aside for the Louisiana people, Jeff Landry put five ballot initiatives on the ballot. All went down. No, no, no, no, no. So I think that's another good sign about where things are politically in the country. But Lindsey Graham said over the weekend about Cassidy's loss, if you try to destroy President Trump, you're going to lose because this is the party of Donald Trump. And that in itself may be the problem. Talk about what you. Your little meditation in the newsletter on that.
- [01:15]
B
It is kind of amazing, isn't it, that a Republican senator been in the Senate quite a long time, the House before it presumably has some attachment to the broader party its principles, ran against Trump, obviously, in 2015, 2016. Just says it's the party of Trump. And he's not saying it regretfully or sort of sadly or in a melancholy way. That's just a fact. And you know what politics is about, Tim? Politics is about is adjusting to whoever's in power and just sucking up to him shamelessly no matter what he does. So Bill Cassidy, I don't know if Lindsey is close to Bill Cassidy. They've served together quite a long time. But no regrets. He goes down because he voted five years ago to impeach Trump for what he clearly deserved, to be impeached for the January 6th insurrection. Cassidy, unfortunately, then spent the next five years basically sucking up to Trump. So I have limited sympathy for him, honestly. Including, of course, the key vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Before the committee, which I guess Cassidy's chairs. Right, the health committee. Anyway, so, yes. So that's. It is the party of Trump. Well, go ahead, talk about Louisiana for a minute, too. Yeah. Because it is kind of interesting, right?
- [02:22]
A
Yeah, Look, I mean, Cassidy goes down basically only wins some districts around New Orleans, which is basically, I don't know, our people probably holding their nose and voting for him essentially at a gathering on Saturday where a couple of people said that, you know, they were in there, we have the best, I Voted stickers here in Louisiana. That's a little crawfish, you know, looking at all of us, you know, with his little snappers talking about voting. And a couple of them had it on and I was like, what did you decide to do? And several of them just said that they, I hate Bill Cassidy, but they're like, well, at the end of the day, you know, we know that whoever Trump endorses will just do literally whatever he wants and maybe Cassidy will go back to being independent after he, after he wins again, not excited about that, but there's no other good option. But not much sympathy for that view in the rest of the state. But I don't know, I thought that the ballot initiatives were telling, you know, and they were, they weren't particularly close. And if you look at the turnout and, and in the Deep south, it's sometimes a little hard to look at turnout based on voter registration because there's still some like basically old Republic, they're Republic, you know, elderly Republicans who were Democrats, you know, back in the civil, you know, back in the, you know, 90s, racist Democrats, Southern Democrats who just never changed their party identification, actually registration. But, but now that they've closed primaries, you assume most people would like choose the party that they're actually in and re register. And it was only like 8% more Republicans than Democrats voted, which is about a 12% swing. Which again, have you kind of mapped that onto the election in the fall. It wouldn't mean that Louisiana would have a Democratic senator, but it would mean maybe Texas or Iowa would, if there's a 12 point move towards the Democrats. So I thought it was pretty, in that sense, pretty telling a lot to not be happy about here in Louisiana. I mean, they canceled the House elections because they're trying to steal a House seat. But the broader dynamics I think are pretty clearly at play. And this is what you get into if you look at the numbers. CNN approval this morning. CNN New York Times. Trump approved 37 disapproved 59 CBS Trump approved 37 disapproved 63 I thought, interestingly, in the CBS poll, they asked Trump's favorability on the economy even lower than his overall favorability, 30% favorability on the economy. Now we're getting down towards that Tricky dick line at 30%. So I don't know. What did you make of all that?
- [04:52]
B
No, I think the polls are really striking. They're both good polls and you always want to compare apples to apples. So what you compare them to previous polls by the same outfits, the Same organizations. The CBS poll has ticked down 1 point each month in 2026 for Trump. one point, the approvals ticked down a point and the disapprovals ticked up a point each month. And a point's not much. It's frustratingly slow. It has. But the Last half of 2025, Trump was very stable, basically at around 4159, within a point, literally either way, kind of just up and down. Then in January this year, he was 4159, then 40, 63,961, 3862. And by May, 37, 63. Kind of a trend line, I think. And again confirmed by other trend lines, including this morning's New York Times, which if I let's see, that had Trump. Trump was within two points, I think in the time last September, an approval disapproved gap. Then it moved. It opened up some in January. February, I think, was the next one. And now it's 3759. Trump has gone down in the New York Times poll as well. So the trends are similar in almost every poll. 37% approval in those two polls, 38, 39%. If you look at the big averages now, which include some lagging polls, I would say the New Times average and the Nate Silver average, I mean, that's very bad for the midterms. There's a lot of political science data on this. Ron Brownstein spends all his time com writing about it in a very intelligent way. If you're, you know, you may, you'll win. Some Republicans running for Congress will win some Trump disapprovers. There's no question. There are some people who say, I disapprove of Trump and I still want a Republican member of Congress. But when you're having a midterm election when the president has, when the president's party has control both houses of Congress, so it becomes a referendum on do you want a Congress to continue to go along with the president or to check the president? You don't win that many. Usually if you're disapprovers. Ron says it's about 10%. Normally, if you look at the polls on Election Day and especially, and this is what gets to the Lindsey Graham comment, if the party is just tied at the hip with Trump. It's one thing if you have a whole lot of independent members of Congress and they have their own identity, their own brand, and voters can tell themselves sort of what you said about Cassidy, but that was more wishful thinking, Right? But even so, Cassidy was one of the four or five most dissident, I suppose, Republican members of the Senate. The others, you know, Marshall in Kansas and, and either Paxton or Corny for that, for that matter at this point are not, have not shown much dissonance at all. And that would be true in other states as well. So I, I really do think in the House races, obviously. So I think the degree to which Trump at 37 means a good Democratic year this November, that can't be overstated. And this trend remains down, incidentally. Trump could bounce back some 37. I expect these trends never go entirely in one direction for 10 months. There'll be some uptick one month of a point, but it just is likely he'll be lower than 37, than higher, especially if you think about the real world. Are things going to get better in the economy in the next five, six, five months? I'm kind of doubtful. Right. So is the corruption going to get less obvious? So one last point just on the CBS poll, which is the one I looked at more closely. The Times poll came out very early this morning and I was already writing about cbs. But does Trump care about people like you? Was terrible for Trump. How much do you think Donald Trump cares about the needs and problems of people like you? A lot. 18%? Some 17%. So 35% cares about you? Not much. 14%? Not at all. 51%. 3565. That's been a Trump strength, caring about people like you. Right. I mean, that's so man. 51% doesn't care about you at all. 52% strongly disapprove. That's a very big hill to climb for the Republicans.
- [08:40]
A
It is indeed the only countervailing point to that. Maybe we'll do a little bit more on this at the end, but I just want to flag this is.