THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

Latest Episodes:

Trump Press Sec’s Fury at Media over Texas Flood Exposes Worst of MAGA Jul 09, 2025

Show notes

At least 109 people have died amid devastating flooding in Texas. Distressingly, 27 deaths occurred at a summer camp for girls, and the toll continues to rise. This week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt angrily lashed out at the news media and Democrats for asking whether Trump administration policies bear any blame for the disaster’s impact. What struck us, though, is her demand that we all treat this as a “national” tragedy. She’s right that we should do this. But that solicitude is precisely what Donald Trump and MAGA deny to non-MAGA America at other urgent moments. And that’s the true MAGA ethic at its ugliest. We talked to New Republic staff writer Kate Aronoff, who has a new piece on all this fallout. We discuss why Leavitt is wrong to silence hard questions, why Democrats should talk about GOP priorities at times like these, and why MAGA’s approach to solidarity is so deeply twisted.

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Trump Accidentally Reveals a Big Weakness on ICE Fiasco, Angering MAGA Jul 08, 2025

Show notes

At a rally, President Trump declared that he now may suspending deportations for farmworkers and other migrant workers. Trump openly admitted this will anger the “radical right,” by which he likely meant Stephen Miller and others who want every last undocumented immigrant in this country removed—or else. Indeed, leading MAGA influencers sharply attacked the move: One declared that it will “break” the MAGA coalition. The other flatly demanded that Trump keep on deporting “grandmothers.” We think all this should be understood as a display of weakness: Trump badly wants the public to think he’s considering relaxing his mass deportation regime precisely when Congress has given him tens of billions of additional dollars for it. We talked to journalist, historian, and podcaster Garrett Graff, who has a new piece on his Substack about what’s coming. He explains why rapidly expansion of Trump’s paramilitary force is so dangerous, how his effort to pseudo-moderate on deportations has exposed serious political vulnerabilities, and why he has no easy way out of them. Listen to this episode here.

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"Shocking": Trump's Use of Secret Police Is About to Get Much Darker Jul 07, 2025

Show notes

In today’s episode, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg makes a crucial point: During months of debate about President Trump’s now-signed budget bill, there was very little public debate about what its explosion in Immigration and Customs Enforcement funding will inflict on America. Rosenberg chalks this up in part to Democrats’ failure to engage on the matter. We discuss the bill’s extraordinarily large health care cuts and its massive upward redistribution of wealth—and how Democrats should attack that. But now that it has passed, it’s also sinking in that the tens of billion of dollars the bill pours into expanding Trump’s detention complex will supercharge those masked, unidentified “secret police” that keep snatching migrants and legally-present immigrants off the streets. The whole project just got much darker. Rosenberg also discusses the intense civil conflict that this is already starting to unleash, and why it will get much worse. He reflects on how Democrats can campaign against the “shocking” darkness that Trump is inflicting on the country.

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Trump’s Threat to Jail Foes Darkens, Prompting Epic Retort from Zohran Jul 03, 2025

Show notes

This week, President Donald Trump issued many angry threats against Zohran Mamdani, the underdog winner of New York Democratic mayoral primary. Trump has been attacking Mamdani, a state Assemblyman, as a “Communist,” threatening to arrest him along with other foes, and questioning Mamdani’s U.S. citizenship, hinting at a possible effort to try to strip his citizenship. What caught our eye is Mamdani’s response: It was sharply worded, illuminated the real stakes in this battle in a novel way, and effectively declared that the threat posed by Trump’s secret police to immigrants actually threatens us all. Democrats can learn from this, because Trump’s threats to denaturalize foes may soon become real. We talked to David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. He explains what Trump would need to do to denaturalize Mamdani and other political opponents, what liberals and Democrats be preparing for right now, and why basic freedoms are hanging in the balance—for all of us.

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Angry JD Vance Accidentally Reveals How Trump Is Screwing MAGA Voters Jul 02, 2025

Show notes

The Senate just passed President Trump’s big budget bill, which will cut $1 trillion from Medicaid to fund huge tax cuts for the rich. In a remarkable series of angry tweets, Vice President JD Vance downplayed the Medicaid cuts while saying what really matters is the bill’s massive funding for ICE and migrant detention. It was a striking and very revealing moment: Vance basically told MAGA voters not to think too much about losing their Medicaid benefits; instead focus on how many migrants the bill will end up jailing and deporting! That scam—getting voters to hate on immigrants so they don’t notice that Republicans are massively redistributing wealth upwards—is integral to getting the Medicaid cuts passed. But will voters buy it? We talked to Kristen Crowell, who is campaigning against the bill for the advocacy group Fair Share America. She explains how Trump voters and other constituencies are reacting to the bill in many communities with anger and fear; why the public is not receptive right now to typical GOP attacks on the safety net; and whether this can be converted into midterm gains for Democrats.

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Trump’s Fury at Thom Tillis Backfires, Wrecking His Own Dumb MAGA Scam Jul 01, 2025

Show notes

President Trump is raging at GOP Senator Thom Tillis for telling the truth about the Senate version of his budget bill, which could knock 10 million people off Medicaid. Trump threatened him with a primary—whereupon he announced his retirement. Tillis has since been sharply criticizing the bill, noting it will bump 600,000 people from Medicaid in North Carolina. This reveals that when Trump vowed not to cut Medicaid, he was lying. But it also shows his much-advertised vow to remake the GOP as working class has proven a sham. By threatening Tillis, Trump has only drawn more attention to Tillis’ truth-telling about his swindle of MAGA voters. And as Trump’s own media allies are warning, this could put the Senate in play for Democrats. We talked to New Republic staff writer Timothy Noah, author of a new piece on GOP lying about the bill. He explains why Trump’s Medicaid cuts are so indefensible, how they expose the core of Trump’s “working class GOP” scam, and what it all means for Democratic hopes of regaining power.

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“Mind-Boggling”: Trump Voters Suddenly Learn He’s Screwing Them Badly Jun 30, 2025

Show notes

It’s becoming clearer that many of President Trump’s supporters are realizing how badly they’re getting shafted by his big budget bill and other leading initiatives. Senator Mitch McConnell just privately admitted that many Republicans are getting major blowback from “people back home” about the bill’s deep Medicaid cuts, adding that “they’ll get over it.” A stunning Fox News poll just found that a majority of white men without a college degree oppose the bill. Crucially, these voters make up “the heart of Trump’s base.” Amazingly, Trump’s own pollster just bluntly suggested that Trump voters are feeling betrayal. On top of all that, Trump supporters again and again have been horrified to learn that his deportations are victimizing immigrants they like. And the tariffs are already hurting Trump country. So how badly are his working class voters getting hit? To find out, we talked to economist Jared Bernstein, who paints a dark picture of the impact they’re feeling from all these policies taken together. Add it all up, Bernstein concludes, and the Trump-GOP lack of concern as their voters learn they’re taking it on the chin is “mind-boggling.”

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MAGA Rage Suddenly Takes Unnerving Turn as Trump Plummets in New Polls Jun 27, 2025

Show notes

President Trump’s big budget bill is in some trouble after the Senate parlimentarian ruled that big chunks of it can’t pass via a simple majority. That enraged MAGA: Marjorie Taylor Greene unleashed a furious rant demanding that Senate Majority Leader John Thune fire the parliamentarian. Other top MAGA figures, like Senator Tommy Tuberville and Representative Greg Steube, angrily demanded the same. Though Thune says he won’t take this plunge, MAGA’s anger could escalate, and the demand threatens to further undermine liberal democracy. All this comes as Trump’s general approval is sliding in many new polls, disapproval of Trump is spiking on many major issues, and the budget measure is absolutely tanking. We talked to journalist Sarah Posner, author of good books on the religious right and its impact on MAGA. She explains what Trump’s sliding numbers mean to MAGA, why MAGA’s anger at the parliamentarian really matters, what’s next for the budget bill, and how MAGA fury is partly rooted in Christian Nationalism.

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MAGA Dope Pete Hegseth Accidentally Reveals the Trump Cult’s Dark Side Jun 26, 2025

Show notes

President Donald Trump and his top advisers have worked themselves up into a fury about the leaked intelligence assessment casting doubt on the success of Trump’s bombing of Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth unleashed a wild, angry rant about it during a presser with Trump, viciously attacking intelligence officials for leaking the assessment. What Hegseth ended up revealing, however, is that we almost certainly cannot count on this administration to officially tell the truth about the Iran mission, because as Hegseth demonstrated, everything must always must serve the cult of Trump above all else. We talked to veteran national security lawyer Bradley Moss, who explains why this assessment is so important, what likely went into it, how the Hegseth-Trump-MAGA propaganda campaign is taking us to a very dangerous place as a country, and what to expect next.

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Trump’s Anger at AOC Boils Over—and Reveals a New Way Forward for Dems Jun 25, 2025

Show notes

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio Cortez got into a major online battle over Trump’s bombing of Iran. AOC said Trump had committed impeachable offenses. Trump responded with a wild, lengthy, unhinged rant that dared Democrats to impeach him. And AOC responded by reiterating that the bombing is illegal. What struck us about this is that Trump let himself get spectacularly triggered precisely when his propagandists are blaring forth the message that his Iran saga shows him to be a statesman of world historical stature. Democrats should do more to bait Trump to trample on his own message at key strategic moments. We talked to Salon’s Amanda Marcotte, who regularly decodes the pathologies of Trump and MAGA. She explains the deeper roots of Trump’s fury at AOC, why his narcissism is already undermining his own message on Iran, how all this gives Democrats an opening, and what constrains them from taking advantage of it.

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