If you didn't see Jon Stewart's Monday hosting of The Daily Show, his Main Story was about Trump difficulty focusing on his Iran War.  It's a very galling report -- and extremely funny.
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I’ve seen some great poll numbers recently.
 
To start with was a YouGov/University of Massachusetts-Amherst poll. It’s not one of the top polls, but has a reasonably respectable rating from Nate Silver.  Still, I don’t take this as definitive of anything, just that it’s fitting in fairly well with other polls, although a bit more pronounced.
 
As a starting point, Trump’s approval was the lowest I’ve seen thus far for him – at just 33%.  Interestingly, MS NOW did not show Trump’s overall approval in this poll.  But when I went to go double-check these numbers, it turns out you’ll be very happy.  His approval is 33%.
 
Though that might seem like a bit of an outlier, their results have been pretty much in line with other polls for the past year.  Slightly lower than others, but not my much.  A 44% approval a year ago, in April, 2025.  Then 38% in June, 2025 when the last No Kings Rally was held.  And now this at 33%.  With any poll, what’s most important (to me) are two things:  how it compares to other polls, and how it compares to itself, what its direction is.  And the downward direction is pronounced, and deeply problematic for Trump.  And the MAGOP which follows him so loyally.
 
But very problematic, too, is that the poll focused on specific issues.  And the worst result of all was on Trump’s handling of inflation.  He’s support was a disastrous 24%.  That’s basically everyone except for the MAGA base.  The next worst was Trump’s handling of tariffs, which was 28%.  Then, Trump’s handling of jobs at 30%. 
 
Oddly, the inflation rate is not even close to as high as it was at its worse, and has only shifted a bit in recent months.  But I’m sure that Trump’s bottom-feeder result relates to prices being high and that they aren’t coming down.  And with the poll results also disastrously low on tariffs and jobs, it’s probably all tied to the national perception of the economy being very bad.

But that’s not the poll that caught my eye the most.  That would be a Fox News poll from last Thursday.
 
What leaped out was just one number, and a poll number that’s always under-reported because it’s a minor segment of the electorate.  However, the number is so meaningful because the segment is critical.  It was a poll of non-MAGA Republicans – Republicans who are not a part of the diehard, forever-loyal base – which remains near-unanimous at 97%.  Nor are they even basic MAGA (although that number had a notable drop, down from almost as high 92% down to 84%.)  But non-MAGA Republicans are more on the moderate edge with flexible opinions.  And their support of Trump dropped 11 points from 70% to only 59%.
  
That’s getting close to being under 50%.  And dangerously treading water there, since the trend is going downward, by 11 points.  Known as "in the wrong direction."  And although “non-MAGA Republicans” is a small demographic, any demographic within the MAGOP  that nears “under 50%” speaks loudly for the Mid-Terms.  It doesn’t mean they’ll vote Democratic, but it does mean that maybe some won’t vote.  After all, let’s put some perspective on this:
 
A 59% approval means, of course, there are 41% who don’t approve.  Simple.  But the thing is, this isn’t 41% of the party moving from “strongly approve” (the ones most motivated to vote who don’t need convincing) to merely “approve”.  No, this is 41% of “non-MAGA Republicans” saying they “don’t approve” of Trump.  Period.
 
Now, as I said, “non-MAGA Republicans” are a small segment of the party.  How small, though, that’s the question.  So, trying to figure out how many this represents, I’ll make a pure guess that “non-MAGA Republicans” is maybe just 20% of the party. 
 
We’re now going to dive into Math Land very briefly, which I know can be numbing, but bear with me because I think it’s important in order to understand how I get to the answer.  And brief.
 
What this means is that if 41% of “non-MAGA Republicans” disapprove of Trump, that’s over 8% of the party overall.  (Taking out your abacus, this is 41% of the aforementioned 20% who are non-MAGA.)  And if a party loses 8% of its own support, that’s massive.
 
But further, because Democrats, Independents and Republicans are each about a third of the electorate, losing over 8% of your party extrapolates to about 3% of all voters in the country.  And as I’ve long discussed here, losing 3% of all voters in a close election changes a razor-thin margin of 51-49 to a 54-46 landslide. 
 
And that’s the bigger problem.  Because the starting point here, right now, is that it’s not a “close election.”  Democrats have picked up an average of 16 points in every Special Election since Trump got elected.  Which is just one more reason why I’ve felt that gerrymandering risks backfiring into what’s called “dummymandering.”  And why we’re seeing those 16-point pick-ups on average in all Special Elections, and things like a Democrat flipping Trump’s own Mar-a-Lago district and picking up 22 points. Independents are a huge part of that, but losing support in your own party is, as well. 
 
And keep in mind, what we’re talking about here is 41% not approving.  It doesn’t even take into consideration all those MAGAs who still support Trump, but went from “strongly approve” to only “approve,” who are people who may not be motivated to vote, especially in a Mid-Term and more especially in an election where Trump isn’t on the ballot.  Nor does it take into consideration that the Fox News Poll showed only 84% of standard MAGA now approve of Trump – and that’s the biggest segment of the party.
 
Nor does it take consideration that Trump won’t be on the ballot in the Mid-Terms, and a great many of the diehard MAGA base don’t follow politics much and are purely loyal to Trump, and only come out to vote when they can vote for him.
 
And as I’ve repeatedly written – it’s not going to get better for Trump, because he’s not surrounded by people who can help him, but rather unqualified incompetents who are there just to say “Yes” to him, many of who are actually the cause of some of his problems, and also because Trump has dementia, which is degenerative.
 
Nothing is guaranteed.  And we know MAGOPs will try and are already trying to suppress the vote.  But we also know that Democrats and other organizers know this, too, and (like your union group) are already planning how to push back.  And at the very least, it’s a great starting point. 
 
As Sunday’s No Kings rallies across the country showed, over 8 million Americans took part protesting -- up from 7 million, which was up from 5 million.  And that is trending in the right direction.

If you didn’t see Last Week Tonight with Jon Oliver last night, the Main Story was on Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary.  It's a very good, extremely interesting, and funny report, made timely because Orban's dictatorial career in Hungary is seen as a sort of "template" for Trump and his circle -- and Hungary has an election coming up soon.

As the report notes, Orban and his circle have changed voting laws in ways that make it difficult for him to lose, though at the moment he's behind in polls by double-digits -- though because of those laws, it doesn't necessarily mean a loss.

The only thing I wish the story would have included was how Zsuzsa Hegedus, one of Orban's longest, most loyal advisers resigned in July, 2022, citing an Orban speech which she described as a "pure Nazi text".

Leading up to the No Kings rallies on Sunday, there was something I had noticed on social media, which wasn’t mentioned much on TV.  But before the two previous No Kings rallies, social media was inundated by MAGOPs in Congress and the White House pounding away at how violent the rallies were going to be with communist and fascist coordinators who hate America putting it together, and all these anti-American groups paying for everything to get people there.  This time around, however – after the last rallies were totally peaceful and almost joyfully carnival-like – there was zero online commentary by MAGOPs about the No Kings day. 
 
Clearly, they learned their lesson, and the memo went out to not say anything.  Which means they’ve accepted that there is nothing “un-American” about the rallies at all.  Nothing radical.  Nothing commie or fascist.  Just American citizens peacefully protesting and having fun while doing it.
 
There was a huge rally in downtown Los Angeles, though I chose to go to one being held in Santa Monica, along the Palisades.  Not only was it only about a 15-minute drive from my home, but this was the environment you’d be picketing at.

​And yes, I know that shouldn't base where you picket on the view -- and I didn't, the nearby location was the reason -- but c'mon, seriously, this didn't hurt.
 
Though crowds were massive across the country – and even around the world – larger than the previous No Kings event last June, it wasn’t as large in Santa Monica.  Though it’s possible it may have been, but they organized it differently on Sunday.  Last year, there was a gathering place where everyone went to, and so the size of the crowd was easy to determine.  This past weekend, though, they didn’t have that, and instead people picketed up and down the Palisades (the park that overlooks the Pacific Ocean), so everyone was spread out over perhaps a half-mile.

In fairness, there was one group of picketers who did have the good sense to make their presence felt by getting together as a group.   They didn't carry signs, but then neither did I.  But as you can see, especially from the fellow in the lower left, they were ready to march.​

On this week’s ‘Not My Job’ segment of the NPR quiz show Wait, Wait…Don’t Tell Me!, the guest contestant is librarian Mychal Threets.  He talks about host Peter Sagal about his love of libraries ever since he was a little kid and being selected as the host to bring back the TV show Reading Rainbow that is on YouTube.  His enthusiasm for books comes through in his enthusiastic conversation with host Peter Sagal – which includes telling about how, later getting his Masters degree, he eventually became the supervising librarian at the same library he grew up on.  He also talks about “shushing” people, odd things he’s found that people have left in their books as bookmarks and how he can figure out what books to recommend to kids.
 
This is the full Wait, Wait… broadcast, but you can jump directly to the “Not My Job” segment, it starts a bit after the 21:45 mark.  

The guest on this week’s Al Franken podcast is Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott.  As the show writes, “Baltimore, Maryland is one of Donald Trump's most frequent targets when talking about crime in America. As the President continues to threaten to send troops into American cities, we wanted to hear from Baltimore's mayor, Brandon Scott.
 
“Since Mayor Scott took office, the city has seen a dramatic drop in violent crime. He explains his policies and how investing in the community has helped calm the violence in Baltimore. So it's no surprise that he does NOT want Trump sending troops to his city.
 
“Mayor Scott shares how growing up in Baltimore impacted his political ideology. He also discusses some of the major victories he's had, including lawsuits against a major gun dealer AND opioid manufacturers and distributors. Those lawsuits have brought hundreds of millions into the city and are being reinvested directly into the community.”