THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

Politico reports that Republicans now think they’re seriously doomed in the midterms. One GOP operative offers this truly astonishing quote about Donald Trump’s effect on the party: “We’re preparing for the bottom to fall out.” Republicans are fretting that Democrats have a real chance of winning Senate and House races in states and districts that Trump won by double digits. Another Trump ally laments that he won’t admit he lost the Iran war and is caught in a “classic escalation trap” with no way out. In short, Republicans think Trump is in collapse. And yet...we don’t think Democrats are close to putting this away. So we talked to Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg. He argues that the GOP panic is in sync with what public polls do show about the Senate races and discusses other problems the GOP faces (like the coming reinstatement of Trump’s tariffs). He also ponders what could still go wrong, urging Democrats to address potential pitfalls—their too-small lead in the generic ballot matchup and their lack of a concrete agenda to close out the home stretch.

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Donald Trump lost his temper with a reporter on Tuesday after she pressed him on why Iran is continuing to fight. In barely-concealed anger, he ripped her organization as “fake” and insisted Iran “desperately” wants to make a deal. But of course, that only revealed the line of questioning to be absolutely correct: Iran is not desperate, and he really does not know how to force Iran’s hand or get out of this disaster. Meanwhile, Politico reports that GOP anxiety is growing about how the Iran war will hurt the party in the midterms. Politico sums up the GOP attitude with the word “bleak,” noting that Republicans are “distressed” about the war’s political impact, with one calling this a “quagmire.” We talked to former State Department official Marie Harf. We discuss the deeper reasons Trump is so stuck, what Iran has come to understand about Trump, how Republicans screwed themselves by giving Trump a blank check, and why only a Democratic Congress might be able to extricate us from this fiasco.

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Donald Trump is cratering in several new polls: They have his approval at an average of 22 points underwater. That’s just abysmal. Indeed, as CNN’s Harry Enten notes in a striking on-air analysis, it’s a “record” and “the worst this century,” worse than both George W. Bush and Barack Obama at similar points in their second terms, which produced midterm wipeouts. And Enten points out that Trump is 45 points underwater with independents, also a new record. Enten concludes: “These are horrible numbers!” And yet there are numerous signs that Democrats are not converting this into quite the midterm edge they need. So we talked to veteran Democratic strategist Christina Reynolds. We discuss why the Democratic advantage is insufficient as of now, what’s really making that happen, how to turn it around, and why Trump’s awful numbers will likely prove impossible for the GOP to outrun in the end.

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During his prime-time speech dissembling endlessly about our elections, Donald Trump raged at news organizations for refusing to carry him live. Then his Homeland Security secretary also smeared the media, a sign Trump’s fury continues to deepen. We think this means Trump fully expects news organizations to help him amplify his lies about our elections to sow distrust in them. As we discuss in this episode, his speech revealed that he’s plainly mulling an effort to rig the midterms, and sowing that distrust is key to it. A funny thing, though: Fox News explicitly declined to endorse his claims and refrained from carrying his DHS secretary. And according to Fox sources, insiders were dismayed to hear Trump obsessing over our elections, thought it was bad politics for the GOP, and even worried it was bad for business given post-2020 litigation against Fox. We talked to Harvard political scientist Ryan Enos, who explains how Trump is telegraphing an authoritarian plot to corrupt the elections, why the assaults on the media are central to that, and what we must see in response from Democrats and the American people.

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Original air date: February 2, 2026

With the Daily Blast on break this week, join us as we revisit some of our top episodes of 2026!

After The New York Times reported that President Trump has backtracked on a major demand he’d made on Harvard University, he spiraled out of control in three wild tirades. He angrily insisted on a correction from the Times, and levied unhinged new threats against Harvard, demanding a new billion-dollar extortion payment while calling for the university’s criminal prosecution. Harvard officials clearly leaked word of Trump’s backtracking to humiliate him at a moment of political weakness. It worked: Trump appeared panicked and weak as he fired off half-cocked threats. Which raises a question: Why don’t more institutions grasp that standing firm against Trump is the only way? We talked to Ryan Enos, a Harvard political scientist who has long argued for a strong stand. He explains the internal politics at Harvard leading to its current posture, why this fight’s outcome has broader significance amid our slide into authoritarianism, and what the prospects are for Harvard holding firm.

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