THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

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Best of the Daily Blast: Angry Trump Shocked to Discover Putin Has Humiliated Him: “Bullshit!” Aug 11, 2025

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It appears to be dawning on President Trump that he will not be ending the Russia-Ukraine war in one day as he promised during the campaign. Trump’s frustration at Vladimir Putin is rising: This week he accused Putin of hitting him with “bullshit” and even admitted Putin’s word to him is “meaningless.” This comes as it’s now being reported that Putin is escalating the war against Ukraine and that he’s brushing aside Trump’s anger about it. Add it all up, and Trump is plainly humiliated, realizing that Putin is laughing off his demand for “peace.” We talked to Mona Charen, policy editor at The Bulwark, who writes well about the Trumpified GOP’s embrace of Putin. She explains how Putin has long played Trump, why Putin feels free to humiliate him, and what the various scenarios ahead look like.

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Best of the Daily Blast: Paul Krugman Brutally Wrecks Trump’s Europe Deal: “Scam on His Voters” Aug 08, 2025

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Original air date: July 30, 2025

You’ve probably heard that President Trump and the European Union have reached a big trade deal. This is being widely portrayed as a “win” for Trump and a big humiliation for the EU. But it’s not at all clear what we gain as a country from this deal. Surely the phrase “Trump won” has to mean more than “Trump gets to claim a personal victory and the media is required to play along,” right? We talked to economist Paul Krugman, who has a great new piece on his Substack casting a lot of much-needed skepticism on the deal. Krugman explains in extensive detail what a sham it is: He argues that Europe’s concessions are fake; that the deal won’t spur a lot more manufacturing in the United States; and that its burden will fall heavily on MAGA, making it a “scam on his voters.” Krugman also discusses why the media seems incapable of reporting clearly and accurately on the magnitude of Trump’s incompetence and delusions.

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Best of the Daily Blast: Trump Arrest of Immigrant Triggers Shock and Regret in Small MAGA Town Aug 07, 2025

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Original air date: June 2, 2025

Ming Li Hui, who goes by the name of “Carol,” has lived for 20 years in the town of Kennett, Missouri, after coming here from Hong Kong. She has been raising a family there and works as a waitress—and as The New York Times reports in a piece featuring quotes from Carol and many locals, she’s well-liked in the community. But Carol was recently arrested and now faces potential deportation. This has shocked and dismayed many of the town’s residents, even though the area went overwhelmingly for Trump. Carol talked to us on the podcast straight from jail, where she is awaiting her fate. At times the conversation was difficult: She broke down in tears about her ordeal, was emotionally overwhelmed at the support she’s received from the Trump-backing town, and offers wrenching thoughts about Trump’s effort to deport countless others just like her.

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Trump Press Sec’s Weird Fawning Rant Goes Awry as Poll Slide Worsens Aug 01, 2025

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On Thursday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt delivered one of her most obsequious, fawning tirades about President Trump yet. She credited him with single-handedly resolving a half dozen major geopolitical conflicts around the world, and angrily asserted that it’s high time Trump is granted the Nobel Peace Prize. It’s no accident that this came amid new polling evidence that Trump’s coalition is falling apart in a freshly dangerous way for him, as documented in a great new piece by New Republic senior editor Alex Shephard. In today’s episode, Shephard explains how the numbers show key constituencies getting away from him. We discuss all the ways Leavitt’s North Korea-style propaganda actually works against Trump by reinforcing the emperor-has-no-clothes vibe around him, why the press is reluctant to tell the truth about his unpopularity, how Democrats need to stop treating him as if he’s invincible, and what that should look like.

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Trump Hit by Harsh Blow from Fed Chair as Polls Reveal Fresh Weakness Jul 31, 2025

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President Donald Trump has been raging at Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell for weeks, demanding that he cut interest rates. But on Wednesday, the Fed declined—and worse for Trump, Powell delivered a blunt assessment of his tariffs, claiming they are “pushing up prices,” and that “near-term measures of inflation expectations have moved up.” Given that this comes right when more of Trump’s tariffs are set to take effect on August 1, and given that Powell is directly defying Trump’s fury, that amounts to a harsh blow for the president. Indeed, Trump is also venting his fury at various GOP senators for not doing his bidding. On top of all that, two new polls show his approval rating down to an abysmal 40 percent, with one finding his approval on the economy even lower. We talked to MSNBC.com columnist James Downie, author of a new piece on Democrats and the midterm elections. We discuss why Trump is weaker politically than he looks, why various dynamics look poised to make that worse, and why it’s high time for Democrats to start acting like it.

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Paul Krugman Brutally Wrecks Trump’s Europe Deal: “Scam on His Voters” Jul 30, 2025

Show notes

You’ve probably heard that President Trump and the European Union have reached a big trade deal. This is being widely portrayed as a “win” for Trump and a big humiliation for the EU. But it’s not at all clear what we gain as a country from this deal. Surely the phrase “Trump won” has to mean more than, “Trump gets to claim a personal victory and the media is required to play along,” right? We talked to economist Paul Krugman, who has a great new piece on his Substack casting a lot of much-needed skepticism on the deal. Krugman explains in extensive detail what a sham it is: He argues that Europe’s concessions are fake, that the deal won’t spur a lot more manufacturing in the U.S., and that its burden will fall heavily on MAGA, making it a “scam on his voters.” Krugman also discusses why the media seems incapable of reporting clearly and accurately on the magnitude of Trump’s incompetence and delusions.

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Trump Accidentally Wrecks His Own Epstein Lie as Musk Goes for Jugular Jul 29, 2025

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President Trump just offered some bizarre new ramblings about the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. But he undermined himself: He claimed to know about elite Democrats and liberals who had visited Epstein. But that just raises the question that won’t go away: If this is what the Epstein files would reveal, then why isn’t Trump ordering their release? Every time Trump says such things, he wrecks his own Big Lie: That the Epstein scandal is a Democratic hoax that actually implicates Democrats even as he won’t release the files. Meanwhile, Elon Musk just endorsed the idea that Trump might try to pardon Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell in exchange for exoneration. Musk knows Trump’s machinations here are a major point of weakness. We talked to Jennifer Rubin, editor-in-chief of The Contrarian, who has a good new piece laying out why Trump should be panicking over this scandal. We discuss the absurdity of Trump’s biggest Epstein deceptions, why they’re unsustainable for Trump, and why it all underscores the urgency of a Democratic victory in 2026.

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“Sham”: Trump Just Made Epstein Fiasco Even More Humiliating for MAGA Jul 28, 2025

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President Trump is now suggesting he may pardon Ghislaine Maxwell, the accomplice to Jeffrey Epstein who’s serving time for sex trafficking. Trump told reporters: “I’m allowed to do it.” He dispatched Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche to solicit testimony from Maxwell, ostensibly to gain new insight into Epstein’s activities. But in today’s episode, lawyer Philip Rotner, author of a new piece for The Bulwark on the Maxwell angle, suggests that the move by Blanche—previously Trump’s personal lawyer—is itself extremely dodgy and appears motivated by a desire to protect Trump. Rotner explains why it’s plausible Blanche hopes to get Maxwell to exonerate Trump, which Trump could then reward with a pardon. It’s hard to overstate how humiliating all this is for MAGA: After demanding the “Epstein files” for years, they got their people in at the Justice Department—and now they’re taking new steps to cover it all up. While some in MAGA are telling themselves that Maxwell will finally reveal the whole truth, that only makes them look even more absurd. Rotner unpacks the latest developments and explains why it’s all a “sham.”

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Trump Hit by Harsh Takedown on “The View,” Igniting White House Fury Jul 25, 2025

Show notes

A new Gallup poll finds that President Trump’s approval has dropped to 37 percent. But the White House has figured out how to get those numbers back up: By picking a huge fight with “The View.” This week, Joy Behar unleashed a striking takedown of Trump, mocking him mercilessly for being jealous of Barack Obama. This enraged the White House, which responded with name calling—and a veiled threat. Which got us thinking: Doesn’t the logic of the situation dictate that Trump’s authoritarian threats will of necessity escalate? We talked about all this with Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, a skilled decoder of MAGA’s cultural hatreds. We discuss why Behar’s broadside was so perfectly aimed at Trump’s soft underbelly, why Trump’s only way forward may be more arrests, and how this whole saga shows that Trump thought the culture was moving his way—but it’s not, driving him into a fury.

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“Furious” Trump Vents at Epstein Mess as Allies Admit He’s Vulnerable Jul 24, 2025

Show notes

President Donald Trump is “furious” about his inability to make the Jeffrey Epstein scandal go away, Politico reports. He’s frustrated with his staff’s failure to tamp down the uproar, which continues to consume his base, and his allies are admitting this has become major problem, with one telling Politico that Trump understands that “this is a vulnerability.” This comes amid new reports that Attorney General Pam Bondi and her deputy privately informed Trump earlier this year that his name appears numerous times in the Epstein files, suggesting this story will get worse. We talked to media strategist Tara McGowan, the publisher of the pro-democracy Courier Newsroom. We discuss why this scandal is dispelling the myth of Trump’s superhuman control over media narratives, how Democrats must seize this moment, and why they should treat this scandal as a genuinely important story that really matters to many Americans.

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