THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

Original air date: April 29, 2026

In today’s episode, economist Paul Krugman lays out an expansive case that Donald Trump holds a losing hand in the war with Iran. Krugman argues that Trump can’t seem to admit that the Strait of Hormuz problem has cornered him. Krugman also details why the situation could get worse, if Iran continues holding out and constraints on oil supply drive the global economy into recession. As Krugman puts it, this will keep getting uglier for Trump until he “swallows his pride” and accepts that he doesn’t hold the cards. This builds on the ⁠piece Krugman posted on his Substack⁠ arguing that time is on Iran’s side. Gas prices just ⁠hit a new high⁠, and Republicans ⁠quietly fear⁠ their midterm prospects are darkening due to what Trump has unleashed. Krugman takes us through these dynamics, notes that Trump is obsessing over his ballroom in search of a win, and explains why this all could tailspin further for the GOP.
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Original air date: August 13, 2026

By now you’ve heard that when Donald Trump left the NATO summit in Turkey last month, he was clandestinely transferred from Air Force One to an alternative plane to avert a credible Iranian threat. It appears many of his cabinet members were left on Air Force One. Now new leaks make the story look darker: It turns out Trump brought several of the aides who are personally closest to him on the safe alternative flight. This, even as he left numerous journalists on the original plane, which effectively turned them into a decoy that might have been targeted. None were informed of the operation. It all perfectly captures Trump’s contempt for the media, so we talked to Margaret Sullivan, author of the excellent press-critiquing Substack “American Crisis.” She explains why this saga is so irregular, why the media faces a moment of uncommon challenges, and why journalists often won’t directly confront authoritarianism, even when it gravely threatens their own institution.

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This week, Donald Trump aggressively highlighted a long screed from a MAGA influencer that sharply criticized the GOP for failing in all kinds of ways. This is aimed like a laser at depressing the Trump base. Making this matter more, Trump keeps saying stuff like this himself: He recently declared that his voters are not angry at him, they are angry at Republicans. Translation: Trump voters should hold the GOP accountable for failing him. This directly undercuts the GOP midterm strategy of campaigning on...the achievements of the GOP Congress. Note that Mike Johnson keeps attempting that strategy, only to see Trump undercut it again and again. We think this could actually matter, and to parse out why, we talked to Jennifer Rubin, editor-in-chief of The Contrarian. We discuss why Trump’s attacks on the GOP really could make a huge difference in hard demographic terms, why Trump’s political project requires him to keep doing this, and what Democrats must do now to avoid overconfidence and close out strong.

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Donald Trump is reportedly instructing advisers to spend big on midterm ads...about himself. Sources leak to The Atlantic that Trump advisers are telling him the real reason the polls look so bad is that voters are unaware of his many stupendous successes. He is apparently so unwilling to accept the reality facing Republicans that he’s nixing their efforts to make their races more local—and less about him. All this comes as Republicans openly fear Trump’s trade war with Canada will hurt their chances. That Trump is going haywire with his anti-Canada mania—even as the GOP begs him not to, and even as he plans new ads about himself—all constitutes a new level of unraveling. We talked to Mona Charen, who’s been arguing at The Bulwark that Republicans badly need Trump to stay away from them. We discuss how Trump’s autocratic nature bars advisers from telling him the truth, why Republicans aren’t permitted to seek distance from him, and what some remarkable new polling reveals about Trump-MAGA weakness.

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Donald Trump’s rage at Canada is growing more unhinged. He just posted a deranged threat to rename Lake Ontario with the phrase “Lake America.” But it gets worse: He also intimated that the U.S. won’t be “doing much business with Ontario any longer.” That would be seismic, but here’s the thing: Trump appears to actually want this outcome. That’s why he’s plunged us into a trade war with our ally. But it’s backfiring: Canada just released its list of American products that will face retaliatory tariffs, and it appears aimed at harming local economies in ways that will hurt GOP incumbents and candidates. We previously reported this would create problems for Republicans. Now that it’s happening, we recorded an episode about it with Democratic strategist Christina Reynolds, a veteran of midterms. We discuss why the trade war could have outsized impact in the Midwest, how this might badly hurt GOP chances, what the Midwest’s political transformation reveals about the decline of Trumpism, and how Democrats can seize this moment going forward.

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