There’s been a change of mood across the country – and not one that is favorable to the GOP. Last November, the prediction markets gave Republicans a 70 percent chance of keeping control of the Senate. Now their odds have deteriorated. It looks likely that the Democrats will win both the chambers – so what’s happened?
The latest polls all tell the same story. The economy is no longer Trump’s superpower. Of those polled by Fox News, three- quarters rate the economy negatively, with 70 percent feeling it’s getting worse. Voters now trust Democrats on the economy more than Republicans for the first time since May 2010. Trump’s weakness on the economy brings with it another growing danger for him. It is precisely when the public lacks confidence in an incumbent’s economic policy that they begin to pay attention to allegations of corruption.
“There’s a tipping point for an incumbent,” says Henry Olsen of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, saying that Trump is now entering the danger zone should “voters come to believe that person doesn’t care about them.” The new Fox News poll found 63 percent of those surveyed agreed Trump “doesn’t care about people like you.” Most importantly, that included more than a quarter of 2024 Trump voters.
When Fox asked voters what the most important issues facing the US were, the issue of “political leadership/corruption” placed fourth, ahead of the Iran war. Among self-styled moderate voters, the issue of corruption tied for third place. An April Rasmussen Reports poll found that nearly half of likely voters believe the Trump administration has more corruption than most recent administrations.
There are breathtaking financial ties between Trump, his family and the countries they do business with
An idea has taken hold that Trump’s administration isn’t minding the economic store but focuses instead on enriching themselves. If this idea keeps spreading, there’ll be serious consequences for both Trump and the Republican party. Should the Democrats take just the House, they’ll send so many subpoenas flying that they will blot out the sun. Oversight hearings will fill the legislative calendar as every federal agency is probed and all of Trump family’s business dealings too. Just last week, Senator Elizabeth Warren blasted the Pentagon’s decision to award a $24 million contract to a robotics startup at which Eric Trump serves as chief strategy advisor. Warren asked, “Is the Pentagon just a cash machine for Trump’s kids now?”
The Trump Derangement base of the Democratic party is out for blood. Cautious Democrats are advising they not immediately move to impeach Trump if the party does retake the House. They call for building a case, piece by piece, that the Trump administration has abused power across the whole of government and Republicans have forgotten ordinary Americans. But such is the fervor of those infected with TDS that the wider party may well ignore such counsel.
Dan Turrentine, co-host of the political show The Huddle and a former chief of staff to Democratic Congressman (now Governor) Jared Polis of Colorado, sees Democrats becoming arrogant. He predicts that, should they win, their “plans for retribution are running out of control.” Donald Trump remains “a terrific political athlete who no doubt has many tricks up his sleeve,” he says. Axios reports that some companies are preparing for investigations if the Democrats do storm Congress in November. “Winter is coming,” a top executive at a leading investment firm told me, making a reference to the brutal conditions faced in Game of Thrones.
But if Democrats are able to restrain themselves, they won’t find it hard to demonstrate Trump is a crony capitalist president. Trump clearly revels in a system in which the rich and well-connected get their way because they have personal clout with decision-makers. He favors CEOs and companies that do his bidding and allow him to boast he has won great victories. One of the reasons the President was so angered when the Supreme Court curbed his authority to unilaterally impose tariffs was that he lost much of his discretionary power over CEOs.
There are breathtaking personal financial ties between Trump, his family members and the countries they do business with. Take the United Arab Emirates, an oil-rich autocracy which has cultivated Trumpworld through Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed al-Nahyan, the brother of the UAE’s monarch, who controls a financial empire estimated at $1.3 trillion.
Tahnoon secretly paid half a billion dollars for a 49 percent stake in the Trump family cryptocurrency company, World Liberty Financial, just four days before Trump’s inauguration last year. He also installed two of his subordinates on WLF’s five-person board of directors alongside President Trump’s son Eric, and Zach Witkoff, the son of Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.
This month, the Wall Street Journal reported that the UAE is asking the US Treasury Department for a foreign exchange swap line to bolster its economy. Trump told CNBC he was “surprised” by the UAE request “because they are really rich” but that he may grant it because the kingdom has “been a good ally of ours.”
It might also be said that the UAE has been a good ally of the Trumps. Forbes magazine reports that Donald Trump’s net worth increased by $1.4 billion in the year since he returned to the White House. Forbes now estimates the President’s net worth at $6.5 billion, and concludes that he “has presided over the most lucrative presidency in American history, adding billions to his net worth, largely by cashing in on crypto.” It won’t come as a shock that in its second coming, Trumpworld returned to power with an even greater number of grifters, graspers and government leeches than before.
Exhibit A was Corey Lewandowski, Trump’s 2016 campaign manager. He served for months as an unpaid, part-time volunteer without any legal authorization advising then-Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem. He effectively took control of the department, making key decisions on hiring and firing, steering contracts to favored firms and demanding he be given a federally issued gun and law-enforcement badge despite having no status as a federal agent or law enforcement training.
Trump finally lost patience with the stench of stories involving Lewandowski and Noem and fired her in February. Both are under investigation by the department’s inspector general for fast-tracking a $220 million no-bid ad campaign featuring Noem’s image. Safe America Media, a firm registered at a Republican consultant’s home and set up just seven days before the contract, secured $143 million from the contract.
Exhibit B was Labor secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who was becalmed by a growing Inspector General probe into allegations of travel fraud, mistreatment of staff and an inappropriate relationship with an underling. She denied the allegations against her and desperately tried to stay in Trump’s good graces, going so far as to hang a three-story banner of his face outside the Labor Department building, though Trump appears to have finally got rid of her in April, when her resignation was announced.
Who among his cabinet members will Trump next decide to cut loose? Who is proving too much of a distraction for Trump comfort? Insiders point to Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. Lutnick had a central role putting together his department’s $1.58 billion January investment in the rare-earth mineral company USA Rare Earth, Inc. Lutnick’s old Wall Street firm, Cantor Fitzgerald, was the lead placement agent for the private investor portion of the deal. Lutnick himself is divested from the firm, but it’s now run by his two adult sons. One of them, Kyle Lutnick, was a hip-hop artist and DJ known as “Kxtz” just before taking a leadership role at Cantor Fitzgerald.
Trump supporters have long dismissed allegations of corruption as a form of “revenge politics” or lawfare. They liken it to the discredited Russiagate scandal during Trump’s first term and some at least put on a good show of remaining confident. James Blair, who now runs Trump’s outside political operation, told CNN last month that for voters “the midterms are going to be about, who do you trust more to deal with these issues that they care about, Republicans in Congress or Democrats in Congress?”
“In the end, people will judge us by results, not innuendo,” one Trump White House aide told me over cocktails. But what if the results don’t arrive on time or are found wanting? “Well,” said the aide, and sighed. “As Bette Davis said in All About Eve, then we’re in for a bumpy ride.”
Trump has masterfully used intimidation, the threats of primary challenges and fear of his Truth Social posts to keep skittish GOP members in line. But it’s also possible that Republicans in Congress will be less likely to ride shotgun with Trump in coming months. When the Republican-led Indiana State Senate voted last year against a Trump-backed gerrymander that would have given Republicans an additional House seat, the President vowed to seek revenge against eight state senators who defied him. But signs are that he may not win many of the primary challenges he’s encouraged against them on May 3.
Trump supporters have long dismissed allegations of corruption as a form of ‘revenge politics’
Similarly, Trump’s obsession with defeating Republican Congressman Thomas Massie in his primary in Kentucky on May 19 may fall short. Trump called Massie “the worst Republican Congressman” in history after he pushed for release of the federal government’s files on Jeffrey Epstein. Ads branding Massie a “Trump Traitor” blanket his district, but internal polls show Massie ahead, with voters focused on other issues.
Late last month, Trump downplayed concerns over an insider trading scandal involving an American soldier allegedly betting on the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. “The whole world, unfortunately, has become somewhat of a casino,” he told reporters in the Oval Office before concluding, “it is what it is” and then pivoting to familiar boasts about the rising stock market.
The problem Trump faces is that so many of his political bets are riding on what a growing number of voters view as a casino political system. A decade ago, Donald Trump rose to power running against a system he called “rigged” both against him and ordinary Americans. It’s clear that a considerable number of his own ordinary voters have come to believe that it’s Trump himself rigging the system now, and only in his own favor.
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