Good morning. I’m Thom Hartmann.
Donald Trump’s approval numbers have cratered to the lowest point of his political career, and even his own staffers say he’s ignoring it all to chase vanity projects.. A new study finds nearly half of young people aren’t going to church specifically because of evangelical leaders cozying up to Trump. A MAGA congressman who pushed for Trump to serve a third term just got crushed in his own primary, even with Trump’s endorsement. And ICE is now saying it will only release body camera footage when doing so improves the agency’s image.
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Trump Staffers Admit He’s Chasing ‘Hobbies’ to Distract from ‘Terrible Polling Numbers’
A recent Quinnipiac poll pegged Trump’s approval at 32 percent, which is officially the worst number of his entire political career. That’s even worse than after the January 6th insurrection. More than two-thirdsof Americans — 68 percent of voters — now say Trump isn’t paying attention to the issues actually affecting their households.
So what is Trump focused on? One unnamed White House source confided to Axios the president is consumed by “hobbies” that distract him from his “terrible polling numbers,” which his team says he’s in denial about.
New York Times White House reporter Maggie Haberman told Ezra Klein recently that roughly 70 percent of Trump’s time is spent on building monuments to himself, calling it a “legacy thing.” And none of those projects are winning back any of that support from the public that he lost due to his unpopular Iran war and costly tariffs.
Thanks to Trump’s self-centered focus, Republicans have now something they’ve been able to rely on for the past nine years. While voters used to trust Republicans to handle the economy more than Democrats, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll finds voters now believe Democrats are better on economic issues. That’s the first time that’s happened in nearly a decade, with Democrats leading by eight points on cost-of-living issues.
Republicans are also frustrated that Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC is sitting on roughly $400 million while Republicans in tight reelection races are getting consistenyly out-raised by their Democratic opponents. Trump has promised to spend the money to help Republicans, but hasn’t said when he’ll start writing checks.
While Republicans are pinching pennies, Trump has poured his energy into his draconian voter ID bill, which would requiring voters to produce a passport or birth certificate just to be able to vote. Senate Republican Leader John Thune has repeatedly said the votes aren’t there to pass it, with Trump responding by threatening Thune’s job.
Trump’s staffers lament that the president is obsessed with showing off renderings of his gaudy White House ballroom and the scale model of his planned arch outside of Arlington National Cemetery. He also can’t stop talking about his $400 million Qatari jet, his planned renovation of the Dulles Airport and his new helipad being built on the South Lawn.
Republicans are expecting to lose control of the House, and possibly the Senate, in November’s midterm elections. Some have quietly begged him to pivot to addressing the affordability crisis. But privately, a lot of Republicans doubt he can think strategically about keeping his majorities intact.
Trump knows his party has a problem, but is adamant that the blame doesn’t lie with him. The president recently suggested to Punchbowl News that his voters may not show up as much if his own name isn’t at the top of the ballot. Though he still maintains the GOP will remain in power after November 3.
Herbert Hoover kept telling Americans recovery was close at hand while the ground gave way under them, and in 1932 they handed him one of the most lopsided defeats any incumbent president has ever taken. A president who can’t hear the country anymore isn’t just losing an election, he’s walking away from the only job the Constitution assigns him, which is answering to the people who hired him.
Trump’s Closeness with Evangelical Leaders Is Actively Hurting Church Attendance
A new study finds that nearly half of young adults between 18 and 28 say Christians’ embrace of Trump makes them want to actively avoid going to church.
The survey, which was conducted back in 2024 and recently resurfaced, polled more than 2,300 young adults. Responses were grouped by political affiliation, religious identity, and church attendance.
The findings were apparently so alarming that the Christian Post had to run a correction to clarifying that the research came out of the Wheaton College Billy Graham Center in Illinois and not the similarly named Billy Graham Archive and Research Center in Charlotte, which is the one run under Franklin Graham’s organization. That confusion may explain the study’s findings, as there are two separate institutions carrying the same man’s name, while only one of them is producing data his son probably doesn’t want seen by too many people.
Here’s what those numbers reveal: 15 percent of Gen Z respondents said they slightly agree Trump’s affiliation with Christianity keeps them from church; 14 percent said they agree; 19 percent said they strongly agree. When you add that up, that amounts to 48 percent, making up almost half of Gen Z.
The partisan split is also noticeable. 67 percent of Democrats said Trump’s links to Christian leaders keep them away from church. 42 percent of independents said the same. Only 21 percent of Republicans agreed with that sentiment, with 74 percent of Republican respondents saying they’d attend church regardless of how close Trump is with evangelicals.
Even practicing Christians told researchers that they’re less likely to set foot in church due to pastors’ embrace of the president. That includes 54 percent of generic Christians, 42 percent of Catholics, and even 30 percent of Protestants.
That last figure is key. 30 percent is a significant chunk of young Protestant Christians saying the political fusion between their faith and Trump is a huge turn-off.
Even if Trump were to suddenly distancing himself from Christianity, it doesn’t mean church pews would suddenly fill back up. But it does suggest that as long as he keeps marrying his brand to Christianity, millions of young adults will stay home on Sunday mornings.
The establishment clause of the First Amendment wasn’t written to protect government from religion nearly so much as to protect religion from government, and the Baptist preachers who lobbied hardest for it warned that any church hitching itself to a politician would rise and fall with him. Two centuries later, a generation of young Americans is proving those preachers right in real time.
MAGA Congressman Who Sponsored Bill for Third Trump Term Loses Primary
Republican Congressman Andy Ogles of Tennessee just lost his primary to former state agriculture commissioner Charlie Hatcher, despite Trump personally throwing his endorsement behind Ogles.
Hatcher’s campaign had the support of more establishment Republicans like Governor Bill Lee, former Governor Bill Haslam and former Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who served in the first Trump administration. Hatcher also outraised and outspent Ogles on Tennessee airwaves, and got an infusion of $2 million in outside spending from a pro-clean energy group in the race’s final weeks.
Ogles is known for making incendiary comments, like saying Muslims don’t belong in American society. He more recently deleted a homophobic social media post after pinning the blame on an unnamed staffer. He’s called for New york Cioty Mayor Zohran Mamdani to be denaturalized and deported. And last January of last year, he introduced a constitutional amendment that would let presidents serve three terms, specifically wording it to apply to someone who’s served non-consecutive terms, like Donald Trump.
Ogles was also investigated over allegedly violating campaign finance laws, though he was never charged. He later said the Justice Department returned the cellphone investigators seized for that investigation.
Ogles is officially the ninth incumbent member of the House of Representatives to lose their primary, and the fourth Republican. That’s the most in any single year since 1970. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Cornyn of Texas lost their primaries earlier this year, while Republican Tony Gonzales of Texas dropped out of his race entirely after finishing second.
Wisconsin passed the nation’s first statewide direct primary law in 1903 for exactly this reason, because reformers were sick of watching party bosses hand out nominations in back rooms to whoever kissed the ring. Every time a machine’s anointed candidate goes down in a primary, that reform is doing the precise work it was built to do.
ICE Says It Will Only Release Body Camera Footage When It’s in Agency’s ‘Best Interests’
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) says it will finally equip field officers nationwide with body cameras by the end of next month. But the policy governing those cameras gives ICE enormous discretion over what footage the public actually gets to see, and ICE is already indicating we won’t get to see much, if anything.
ICE’s policy on body camera footage of deadly shootings is apparently to only release video if it serves “the best interests of the agency.” Canadian professot Christopher Schneider, who co-wrote a book on police body cameras, said ICE is saying the quiet part out loud, using the cameras as a PR tool rather than a transparency and accountability tool.
Under ICE’s policy, body cameras to be turned on during arrests, search warrants, and emergency responses. After a major incident, a review committee made up of ICE leaders and lawyers will decide whether to release the footage, with video being cleared for release could come out within 72 hours. But if ICE’s director decides “specific and compelling circumstances” justify keeping the video under wraps, it can be blocked or delayed indefinitely without explanation. Even footage that does get released to the public will still redact officers’ faces, names and badge numbers.
Schneider said he doesn’t expect ICE to release footage from recent fatal shootings in Houston, Texas and Biddeford, Maine, pointing to U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) continued refusal to release footage of the January shooting of Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. CBP Commissioner Rodney Scott told lawmakers in February that the material was still under investigation and would be released when appropriate, though we still have yet to see it as of August.
ICE spent nearly $31 million in July on buying Axon body cameras. That purchase came one day after 37 year-old ICE agent David Brouillette killed 25-year-old Johan Sebastian Duran Guerrero in front of his three year-old daughter, and just days after another ICE agent — whose name has not yet been released — killing 52 year-old Lorenzo Salgado Araujo.
Agents weren’t wearing body cameras in those shootings. Democratic members of Congress were incensed about that, saying they had already given ICE $20 million specifically to buy body cameras in an April government funding bill.
White House border czar Tom Homan said more body cameras were a net positive, claiming the data shows cameras exonerate agents more often than they document wrongdoing. But Schneider predicts ICE will selectively release footage that makes ICE agents look brave and immigrants look dangerous, while burying anything that doesn’t fit that narrative.
Jason Houser, who was ICE chief of staff in former President Joe Biden’s administration, helped launch the agency’s original camera pilot program. He said ICE’s timing is by design in equipping officers with body cameras only after multiple shootings. He insisted the influx of new cameras is a purely political response.
In 1974 a unanimous Supreme Court told Richard Nixon in United States v. Nixon that he didn’t get to be the sole judge of which recordings the country was allowed to hear, and the principle in that ruling couldn’t be simpler. The record of what government does to people belongs to the people, not to the officials whose conduct it happens to capture.
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Here are a few stories you may have missed:
Federal Appeals Court Rules Trump’s Ballroom Is Illegal. In a 2-1 decision, a panel of judges for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that President Donald Trump’s proposed ballroom — which is being built on the wreckage of the East Wing of the White House — can only be constructed with the approval of Congress. The lone dissenting vote came from Trump-appointed U.S. Circuit Court Judge Neomi Rao, who argued that the key plaintiff in the case, the National Trust for Historic Preservation, lacked standing to sue to stop the ballroom’s construction. The other two judges wrote in the majority opinion that plaintiffs adequately argued that Congress had not ceded its powers to the executive branch when it came to significant alterations of historic federal buildings like the White House. Trump’s lawyers are likely to appeal the ruling to the Supreme Court.
Bill Cassidy Says He’ll Vote to Confirm Todd Blanche. Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) said Friday he will vote to officially confirm Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to lead the Department of Justice, likely making him the deciding vote for confirmation. Cassidy was seen as a potential holdout given that he lost his reelection bid to a Trump-endorsed primary challenger and has voted with Democrats on legislation like a War Powers Act resolution to rein in Trump’s ability to wage war with Iran. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) have officially come out against Blanche’s confirmation, while Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) remains absence. Assuming all other Republicans vote in favor of confirming Blanche, he will become the next attorney general with a tie-breaking vote from Vice President JD Vance.
Facebook and Instagram’s Parent Company to Pay $567 Million for Harming Kids’ Mental Health. A court in New Mexico has ordered Meta — which owns Facebook and Instagram — to pay $567 million as part of a judgment finding the company failed to address how social media negatively impacts the health of children who use it. $420 million of that will go toward treatment services for young people impacted, while the remainder will fund awareness and prevention programs for the next five years. This judgment comes after a jury found Meta knowingly harmed children’s mental health and failed to act on knowledge that teen users were being sexually exploited on its platforms, penalizing it with $375 million in fines.
Mitch McConnell’s Quiet Release from Rehab Facility Fuels Speculation. This week, Sen. Mitch McConnell’s (R-Ky.) office announced that the 84 year-old senator had been officially discharged from a rehab facility and will continue his recovery process at home. Social media was rife with speculation, given that McConnell has still not released any video or audio, opting instead for still photos and vague statements. MAGA commentator Eric Spracklen questioned why reporters weren’t waiting outside of the facility with cameras to capture the senator being escorted to his vehicle.
