THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

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Trump’s Odd Ramblings to Media Accidentally Wreck His Own Tariff Scam May 27, 2025

Show notes

After President Donald Trump threatened to single out Apple with tariffs, he offered remarks to reporters that undercut his case. First he seemed to say this would apply to many iPhone makers, but then reiterated he’d said this straight to Apple CEO Tim Cook, a potentially serious abuse of power. Then Trump said U.S.-manufactured jobs would not result in higher prices due to automation, but this concedes that the manufacturing work he hopes tariffs will create are low-level jobs that might get replaced. And then he all-but-admitted that his threat to get companies to “eat” the cost of his tariffs really could mean potentially higher prices for consumers. All these oddities taken together wreck the fraudulent arguments he’s been making. We talked to Monica Potts, the new class politics reporter at The New Republic, who usefully synthesizes all of it to explain what’s wrong with Trump-MAGA manufacturing nostalgia and why the Trump-GOP agenda comprehensively works against his stated goal of creating good American jobs.

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Trump’s Angry New Attack on Harvard Is Already Blowing Up in His Face May 23, 2025

Show notes

After raging at Harvard earlier this month, President Donald Trump is now revoking the university’s right to receive foreign students. The administration sent an unhinged letter to Harvard making the announcement while demanding extensive information about international students, a grotesque abuse of power. The White House statement justifying this seethed with angry, McCarthyite nonsense. We think this is already backfiring: Legal experts quickly dismissed the move as lawless, Harvard is already leaking word that it will take legal action, and the university will probably be able to stop the move. We talked to Jonathan Friedman of PEN America, who explains why Trump’s assault on Harvard is already getting universities to band together, how it’s leading to renewed public support for the university system, and why Harvard’s potential success beating this back will only stiffen institutional resistance to Trump. Listen to this episode here.

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Trump Unravels in Crazed Rants to Media as Poll Reveals Fresh Weakness May 22, 2025

Show notes

President Trump’s presser on Wednesday flew off the rails. He raged at a reporter for questioning his acceptance of a luxury jet from Qatar. He snapped when asked why he’s resettling white Afrikaners but no other refugees. And he tried to humiliate the South African president by brandishing printouts about the deaths of white South Africans but couldn’t defend his lie of a “white genocide” unfolding there. The corruption and the white nationalism—Trump openly promised both during the campaign, and he’s now doing them. Yet on the latter, a new Marquette poll finds wide public disapproval of Trump’s deportations of longtime residents, and shows independents tiling strongly against him on immigration, revealing fresh weakness on this issue. We talked to veteran labor strategist Michael Podhorzer, author of a new piece on his Substack arguing that the anti-MAGA majority that didn’t show up in 2024 is now visibly reconstituting itself in polls. He explains that Trump’s unhinged presser helps show how Trump himself is making that happen.

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“Chilling”: Trump’s Fury at Bruce Springsteen Just Got Much Darker May 21, 2025

Show notes

President Trump has raged at Bruce Springsteen for days, demanding investigations as retaliation against him for criticizing the president. This is easy to dismiss as the usual lunacy, but Rolling Stone reports that there’s a genuine idea at work here: Trump has long planned to use government agencies to constrain his opponents’ political activities, and that’s now under way. Indeed, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey, staunch Trump ally Alina Habba, just brought charges against a House Democrat for trumped up reasons. Given all this, Trump’s fury at Springsteen suddenly looks a lot darker. So we talked to Rolling Stone writer Asawin Suebsaeng, co-author of that article. He explains how Trump is slowly escalating the use of investigatory power against political foes, what the GOP is doing to make this possible, and why the trend is deeply “chilling.”

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Trump’s Angry Walmart Tirade Backfires, Wrecking His Own Tariff Scam May 20, 2025

Show notes

President Donald Trump’s feud with Walmart is intensifying. After the retail giant warned that its prices will go up due to Trump’s tariffs, he erupted on Truth Social, and even threatened Walmart to get it to “eat” the costs of his levies. Then White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt reiterated the threat to reporters. Amusingly enough, all this constitutes an admission that other countries don’t pay the costs of the tariffs, as he keeps claiming—we do. We talked to Lindsay Owens, an economist who’s also executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative. She explains how Trump accidentally undermined his case for tariffs, why this is so damaging given Walmart’s massive presence in MAGA America, and what all this reveals about Trump’s growing political weakness on the economy.

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Trump’s Threats to Defy Courts Darken as MAGA Fury over Losses Grows May 19, 2025

Show notes

President Donald Trump has been ranting wildly at the Supreme Court. In a pair of tweets after oral arguments over his effort to end birthright citizenship displeased him, Trump raged that the people are on his side, a dark hint that he will wield the wrath of his supporters against the high court. Then, after it dealt a setback to his use of the Alien Enemies Act for deportations, Trump shared a tweet from a top MAGA figure suggesting the release of terrorists near the justices’ homes. This was boosted by top MAGA accounts, and Stephen Miller then accused the courts of “sabotaging democracy.” We talked to legal commentator Matthew Seligman about why these veiled threats to defy the courts are trending inexorably toward a major confrontation, why his advisers are egging that on, and why there’s a danger that the Supreme Court could constrain itself to avoid that terrible outcome.

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Trump Rages Over Qatar Jet Fiasco as GOP Angst Worsens: “Humiliating” May 16, 2025

Show notes

President Donald Trump has been growing angry over the criticism of his decision to accept a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar. He snapped at a reporter who questioned him about it, and erupted over it on Truth Social. Now The Atlantic reports that Trump is privately telling his advisers it’s “humiliating” for a president to fly around in an outdated jet—and has even mused about keeping the gift after he leaves the White House—all of which suggests his mood about the scandal is darkening. Meanwhile, MAGA figures and even some Congressional Republicans are criticizing Trump over it. We talked to Atlantic staff writer Russell Berman, who co-wrote that report, about why this story could prove more serious and consequential than it first appeared, why it will be hard for the GOP to brush it off, and what it says about Trump’s contempt for public service.

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MAGA Senator’s Stunning Admission: GOP Is Badly Screwing Trump Voters May 15, 2025

Show notes

The House GOP is forging ahead with its massive domestic policy bill implementing President Donald Trump’s agenda. And it’s becoming clear that it will seriously screw over Trump voters. But don’t take our word for it. Senator Josh Hawley, a staunch ally of Trump, went on CNN and said this in strikingly direct terms. He decried the bill’s massive cuts to Medicaid, and confirmed that they are a betrayal of GOP and MAGA voters. We talked to Jonathan Cohn of The Bulwark, one of the best health care reporters out there. He explains why all this poses a real test for Trump and the MAGA movement. And we discuss whether the same old scam will kick in where Trump and Republicans pretend to be pro-working class while shafting their voters to pay for huge tax cuts for the rich.

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Trump Tariff Fiasco Worsens as Brutal New Reports Reveal a Fresh Scam May 14, 2025

Show notes

The White House has been boasting that President Trump’s partial pause in the trade war with China is a historic breakthrough. But two new reports, one from The New York Times and the other from the non-liberal Wall Street Journal editorial page, neatly expose what a monstrous scam this notion truly is, in and of itself. As they detail, Trump has put the global economy through major turmoil and uncertainty, but without winning any serious concessions from China. This will get worse for Trump: In addition to being terrible policy, the tariffs are a massive abuse of power. And once the lawsuits against them get going, this, too, will be fully aired out. We spoke to George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin, who’s helping spearhead one of the most important legal challenges. He explains why the tariffs are on weak legal ground, what the prospects are for reversing them, and how they reflect a much deeper lawlessness on Trump’s part.

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Jamie Raskin’s Harsh Takedown of Trump’s Qatar Jet Scam Hits the Mark May 13, 2025

Show notes

Over the weekend, the news broke that President Donald Trump is accepting a luxury jet from the country of Qatar for presidential travel. This extraordinarily brazen act may well violate the Emoluments Clause, which bars foreign gifts to officials unless expressly authorized by Congress. It comes even as Trump is embarking on a Mideast trip to countries that are the sites of Trump-branded projects, and Trump-aligned businesses are scooping in huge sums from foreign governments via crypto. We talked about all this with Representative Jamie Raskin, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. He powerfully explains why Trump’s latest move is an “outrageous abuse” of the Constitution, how his corruption has grown to “epic” and unprecedented proportions, and the concrete moves Democrats will make now in response to pressure Republicans over this fiasco. Listen to this episode here.

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