-
Unknown A
What we know from COVID is that the reason why I think that the 2020 election is the highest turnout election in modern history is because it was the first time that government really touched people's lives in an ultra tangible way. Be it checks, be it lockdowns, be it vaccine mandates, like the government policy had never been more directly intervention in your bank account and in your life. And so in this case, you know, if the government is seen as being axing your job or causing stress or any, that it could certainly activate and give people a reason to turn out, which is something I think is a good transition to our next polling segment, which is just about how people are feeling about Elon and or Doge. I'm gonna give my normal caveat. Just everybody remember how wrong the polls were back in 2024, not that long ago.
-
Unknown A
So keep that in mind when you're looking at this and all the other structural problems. It's all we really have to go off of. So based on that, what are we seeing? Can we make possibly some inferences? CNN's Harry Entin, who broke some of the numbers down that we do have. Let's take a listen.
-
Unknown B
The people are mad. They are angry. They are rising up. Take a look here. Top worst things that Trump has done. This is among the folks who oppose Trump actions in office so far. You might have thought going into the election or afterwards it'd be immigration policy, but that comes in at just 10%. Check out on this side of the screen though. I'm coming over to Mr. Berman's side. Musk, Doge or the funding freezes. Right? These funding cuts. Look at that. That takes the cake. 24%. That is the top answer amongst those who oppose Donald Trump's actions in office, saying it is the worst thing that he has done so far. It's must. It's Doge. It's those funding cuts. The people are mad. And if last night is an example, that town hall, they ain't going to take it anymore. The most significant Trump action this term so far.
-
Unknown B
Look at this. Democrats are more angry about this than Republicans are happy about it. Look at this. Democrats 18% say that the Musk Doge access to data is the most significant action so far for Trump this term. Bring it over to this side of the screen. Look at this. Just 9% of Republicans say that Musk, Doge and the access to data is the most significant Trump action so far. So Elon Musk is becoming this rallying point for anger. This rallying point for anger on the Left back In December of 2024, he was underwater, but just underwater by five points. Look at where he is now in February 2025. The American people are turning against Elon Musk. His net favorable rating way down there. Pass now minus 10 points, minus 12 points. The bottom line is this. The voters are angry with Elon Musk. They're angry with the cuts the federal government.
-
Unknown A
So that's the. That's the top line here in terms of the numbers. Chris and I were just talking while the thing was going in terms of the polls, and I guess it's worth talking about in terms of what it is. What do you think? So overall, the statistical analysis I saw saw like a rough, like 3% miss across the board. It's not terrible, but of course, that was within the margin of error, especially in a lot of these swing states. My only caution, as I was telling you, is about the oversampling of Democrats. That was clearly a big problem from 2020. It was a big problem in 2024. That's part of the reason where the miss was, and especially right now. Just because Democrats, if that is to be trusted, especially enthusiasm number, if they're a lot more likely to be politically engaged and. Or respond, it could skew things differently from where they are.
-
Unknown A
I just want to caution people, just considering how, I mean, the Iowa stuff and all of that is just too, too ingrained, and it's been too soon since all of that for me to be fully put my trust in all.
-
Unknown C
Of this, although I think that's all valid. The only thing I will say is if we're thinking, if we're projecting these polls out to like, okay, well, what does a midterm performance look like? Which side is more energized matters a lot.
-
Unknown A
That is exactly. And that is the one that matters the most in a midterm.
-
Unknown C
Yeah. And that's what I saw. I mean, I ran for Congress in 2010 as a Democrat in the Tea Party wave. And so, you know, it was Democrats had control of everything. They were sort of like demoralized or not that energized or not that excited to come out and vote. And Republicans voted en masse, and they were pissed and they wanted to take back power. And we're gonna show you the Bernie town halls. We're gonna show you a little bit of the pushback at some of the Republican town halls. There is a very similar vibe that is starting to emerge to the 2010s on. It's just the reverse in terms of which political party is more energized this time around. And I think, you know, naturally, when you have one party that's in power, typically historically there is a backlash and there is, you know, adjustment in the next midterm where the party that's in power performs really poorly.
-
Unknown C
And then when you add on top of that, you know, Doge taking these incredibly aggressive, chaotic actions, the consolidation of power in the hands of this one dude, that people are increasingly, like, really not psyched about the ways that it really does touch so many communities across the country. Because again, federal government workers are not just here in D.C. they are spread out in communities across the country. The impact of federal government spending is spread out in places across the country. There are a bunch of articles about, and this is actually really sad to me because I love our national parks and I know you do too, Sagar. Like, the impact there and how they've had to stop taking reservations and they're so short staffed they can barely function at this point. Those national parks are huge economic drivers for the mostly rural and many of them Western communities that, you know, that exist out there.
-
Unknown C
So the impact is a lot more diffuse and a lot more widespread than I think people are taking into account. And in addition, I was seeing one analysis that also suggests that, you know, for every federal government worker that you fire, you're also talking about probably two or three contractors that are impacted by that. And again, you know, back to my small town that I live in, I know that's like the whole economy there is around this base. If that takes on, if that is cut significantly, it would be devastating to the whole entire town and community, et cetera. So I think people are very upset and unhappy with the really callous and chaotic way this is all unfolding.
-
Unknown A
Yeah. Part of the problem is, is that it doesn't feel like there's some grand plan. And that's always the issue is if I think about the tariffs we Talked about from 2018, one of the reason why I think that Trump never got any real sustainable pushback is it was directly connected. We're like, look, we're doing this around China. Yes, washing machines will be more expensive. Soybean farmers, we're gonna cut you guys checks from these tariffs. This is all about restoring the trade deficit. And people were like, okay, I understand that the thing is with Doge right now is it doesn't feel. It feels both slap shot and it also doesn't necessarily feel as if it's working to some broader end. And the more that that stuff permeates like you said, I mean, for me, you know, if somebody mess with my Zion reservation, I would be very upset.
-
Unknown A
So I, I feel very much with a lot of those people out there, it's already a shitty program. The way that these National Pro, the National Park Service reservations worked. And if you had stuff like that planned for the future, it would be infuriating because it is one of the cheapest vacations any American can take is to go to a national park. It's literally what, like $70 or something for a year long pass. And you can have unlimited entertainment in them. So. Absolutely.
-
Unknown C
They're absolutely incredible.
-
Unknown A
Anybody out there, go as quick as you possibly can. This is starting to be spring. Shenandoah is here nearby us. It's an amazing park. I've never been to Smoky Mountains. That's next on my list. Yeah, but Zion, Yosemite, Glacier, any of these, they're just incredible, incredible places. Let's put this one up there on the screen. A8, please. Because this is probably the most noteworthy one if we want to go off of people who are accurate. Trump's own pollster certainly was accurate. And he says a poll of swing voters is showing warning signs for Republicans bent on helping billionaires. So it is interesting because if you dig down into the memo from this pollster, it finds, quote, sizable majorities in competitive House districts are unhappy about their economic predicament. It gently warns that Republicans that some of Trump's priorities they would enact would prove unpopular. Though it does avoid saying this directly, the memo suggests that some Republicans at least do think that public opinion matters and even that maybe, just maybe, they do fear being held accountable in the Future Elections.
-
Unknown A
Says 59% of voters in 18 swing districts are worried about their personal financial situations. Republicans have to play catch up here. Trump's approval in the district is 47, 49. So still, I mean, it's competitive and definitely within the margin of error. But you should pay attention to the Tony Fabrizio one. Obviously, he was very accurate in the Trump polls in the Trump election. Trump obviously trusts him and it may inform some of the future decisions here around Elon. And one thing we know about Trump is that Trump is the ultimate transactional figure. Now, I don't think that at this point, he cannot sideline Elon because Elon has become a cause celeb for the left, right? Like in terms of the number one vector. And Trump more than anything, from what I understand the people around him, his biggest regret of his entire presidency is ever caving to liberals.
-
Unknown A
So Charlottesville Apologizing and firing Mike Flynn, like, his main takeaway from the first term is that he should just not listen at all. So anybody predicting some, like, grand firing and all that, I don't. I do think that this sign of this email and saying, hey, don't reply, and all that, that could be the slow phase out. You also don't forget Doge technically is only supposed to exist until July 4th of 2026. So could be like, an initial sidelining and then like, a nice disbandment where they don't acknowledge it 100%. But don't forget, July 2026 is right around when you would have the midterm election. So it's like, right, the summer season is exactly when people start to pay attention. So I could see, you know, some stuff like that in the future, or just a general ongoing move of being like, all right, Elon, you can tweet, you know, whatever bullshit statistics that you want about however much money supposedly saved the government, but these emails and all this other stuff like that needs to stop.
-
Unknown C
We'll see. We'll see.
-
Unknown A
I don't know.
-
Unknown C
There's no real sign of that at this point, but maybe if the poll numbers get more dire, he'll decide, like, all right, I'm kind of, kind of done with this guy. You know, Part of the problem also outlined in this memo from Trump's own pollster, is warning signs about the way that they craft this tax bill coming up as well. Because they asked people, you know, what the top priority of tax policy should be. And unsurprisingly, a vast majority, 63%, said the top priority should be helping working class families. Only 1% said it should be helping corporations and the wealthiest Americans. And yet we already know that in terms of the tax package that they're putting together, whether or not no tax on tips or some other of the more populous proposals that Trump put out there, whether or not any of them make it into that package still really an open question.
-
Unknown C
But even if they do, the vast bulk of that $4.5 trillion tax cut is going to go to the wealthiest in corporations through the extension of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. So you've got that. And then you also have the fact that Americans are still saying, hey, my biggest priority is still inflation. It's still cost of living. And there is zero focus on that from the Trump administration. We've already seen inflation tick up. Now he's saying, oh, that's the fault of the last guy. Maybe people will give him some grace for now, because he is still so new into office, but if those trends continue, which they very possibly could, especially with the, you know, the tariff threats certainly feed into that, etc. Then he could really be in quite, in having quite a lot of problems politically. There already are a lot of polls showing that one of his greatest strengths as a politician has always been the way people trust him on the economy because they just think, oh, this guy's a businessman, he must know what he's doing, etc.
-
Unknown C
He is deeply underwater on the economy already. And so Sagar, I think that's the other problem with Doge is it is the sense of like, I didn't ask for like Gulf of America renaming. I didn't ask for this, like just go and randomly fire a bunch of federal government workers. And you know, I didn't vote for this random guy. Richest man on the planet, like consolidating power and doing all of this just blatant self dealing. And why aren't you focused on the priorities that actually impact me and that I'm focused on in my day to day life? I think that's a real risk for him as well.
-
Unknown A
It would not surprise me. But I'm still just been so burned, I think by a lot. It just seems a little too cute for that to happen. As in like check the box of every liberal mainstream critique. And I've just. Because of the way that 2024 meant, I'm like, maybe we'll see just in terms of what it means for how people internalize all of this. Remember my warning, the more tapped in you are, the more likely you were to vote for Kamala. So how many people out there are even aware of Doge, Gulf of America, or even if they are aware of Gulf America?
-
Unknown C
I think people are pretty aware of Doge.
-
Unknown A
I think it's funny. But, but that's what I'm saying is that you can be aware and like it. And I think that's the one caution I would always give people is remember the way that the media or the liberals will frame something is not necessarily how it lands. Remember Puerto Rico Gate, the childless cat lady, stuff like Brat Summer, all this stuff, it was a complete opposite of how it all eventually turned out. I just really think that's important for people to take away.
-
Unknown C
If we had paid attention to just the material concerns of Americans, we would have been much more on point. People would have had a much more accurate view of how this election was ultimately gonna go. Because people were consistently like, I. My biggest problem is inflation and I'm not happy with the economy, and I'm certainly not happy with the way the Democrats have handled the economy. And so when you have all of them, we're going to do an economic segment later on. A lot of warning signs. Consumer sentiment, you know, turning really negative. Inflation, ticking up, concerns about inflation, ticking up. Trump increasingly underwater on the economy. Like, I think those are very important warning signs for him. And when you couple that with this agenda, that seems really clearly crap. Like, all the populist positioning from the campaign is gone, and now you've just handed the keys over to the richest man on the planet who's out there looking out for himself and his interests, and you're about to couple that with a gigantic tax cut for the rich.
-
Unknown C
I think that is very politically perilous, to say the least.
-
Unknown A
Yeah, the tax cut, I think is. Again, I actually think that might be the most perilous one for Trump because there's no getting around it. If anything, he was lucky that he passed it so early last time around. What was it? April, I think, of 2017. I don't remember if I recall the TCJA, or maybe it was June. It was something like that. That was the first, like, major accomplishment. It was obviously, as I always say, the lowest approval rating for Donald Trump. And by that point, though, three, four years later, people had mostly forgotten about it. So that's one of those where it could be politically perilous. I definitely think it will be for the midterm elections in the long term. I have no idea. Been thinking about the Clinton administration a lot, which similarly had a very rocky 1993, got blown out in 1994, but by 96, is still able to pull it out and somehow win.
-
Unknown A
So it's not always a predictor of how things will go.
-
Unknown C
Obama's another example of that. Tea Party wave happens, and then Republicans think, oh, we're a lock to win, and then he wins in actually quite a significant landslide. On the other hand, I mean, this also raises the question, like, Trump is out there, I'm going to run for another. Shouldn't I run for another term? And there's a whole Steve Bannon and lots of other people that are trying to push for a Trump term, number three, which obviously is unconstitutional. I don't at this point see how they could actually make that happen. But, you know, the other thing is that it is unlikely to be Trump who's running again. So in those situations, you have incumbent presidents who were both extremely politically talented, like, you know, however you feel about them. Ideologically, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were both generally generation generational political talents. Trump is in his own way as well.
-
Unknown C
So you are unlikely to have him on the ballot again, which I do think sort of complicates the picture because nobody has been able to really consolidate and put together the amount of enthusiasm and this particular coalition that Donald Trump has been able to bring in.
-
Unknown A
The case for it is the 88 election. The 88 election was very interesting. HW is a very weak candidate, of course, like the blue blood and the with the grocery store stuff that all happened eventually and sunk him in 92. But really it was like Reagan hangover. People trusted him. The 12 years of government supply side economics and all that narratively was there and then Dukakis was just horrible. So it's one of those where you could see if the Democrats choose a Dukakis style figure, all that you really all HW had to do was not just run on the Reagan legacy, but really against like institutional leftism as it kind of existed at that time. So I've been thinking about that as well, but obviously that's a long, long way away. Let's put some of the polling up here just to see what we have so far.
-
Unknown A
This from the Washington. Oh, sorry, this is from ipso, some new polling that just came in. Approval of must shutting down federal programs he decides are unnecessary. Disapprove is 52% approve, 26 net minus 26. Let's go to the next one, please. Just to continue to show people approval of Elon Musk's job. Government disapproves at 49, approve is at 34 net -15 next one as well. Just to continue, would you rather see the next control Congress by Democrats or Republicans? It has democrats there with 54 again. Remember, it's only been a month, I think a month and four days and all of that things definitely there. And keep in mind all the caveats I gave about oversampling and all of that. But I will just say initially it would not be a surprise. In fact, it would be historically a trend. It would be very in line with historical trends for the Republicans to have a blowout in the midterms.
-
Unknown A
They already don't have control of Congress. Their number one achievement, the only legislative achievement I can track right now with any regularity is this tax bill, which is not going to be popular. It will be popular for a lot of rich people, but that's it. So you're gonna have that. You could have potentially higher inflation and economic crisis or some Sort of international situation. None of that could happen and you would still fit within a historical trend of the Democratic thermostatic public opinion, the turnout being high. This is an interesting theory I've been looking at, is that united control of Congress, of Congress and the presidency often leads to some of the bigger midterm blowouts. So if you think about Obama, similar thing. I was just looking at the margins. Those margins were insane. 57 seats in the Senate is crazy for the Democrats. But the fact is that their ability to pass the 2009, the healthcare reform, obviously that's what ignited the Tea Party wave and that's what led to the huge blowout in 2010 for that.
-
Unknown A
If you look back to the Democrats, a little bit different, you know, with Clinton in terms of the control, but the similar 93 push for that initial health care reform that led to the CHIP act or whatever it was called under Hillary Clinton experienced a significant amount of blowback with the Contract for America. So you could easily see something like that happen with Donald Trump is that very often united control of government leads to a midterm kind of blowout, which wouldn't surprise me.
-
Unknown C
And I think they are really flirting with like historic, just like disaster and political disaster, because as we discussed before, by putting their hands in all of these agencies, you know, even air traffic controllers got the Elon, justify yourself your existence to me in five bullet points, like across the board. So you have, you know, one, you're one major disaster away from people completely turning on this administration, not to mention, as we're about to discuss later in the show, a lot of very concerning economic indicators. So, you know, there is a possibility out there of real political collapse outside of even what like the Tea Party wave was or what the backlash in the Clinton administration was, et cetera. So I do think that they are playing with fire right now. And just to wrap up this block, go back to a 9, which shows some of the numbers for Trump in particular, because in the very early days of the administration, Elon seemed to be taking on water.
-
Unknown C
But Trump was kind of hanging in there. You know, his approval rating was staying more or less 5050, which for him is phenomenal. Greg Sargent here has kind of a compilation of some of the recent polling that has warning signs, not just about Elon, but about Trump himself. Only 34% of approve of Musk's. Musk's role. 63% worry about his data access, according to CNN, 54% say it is bad that he was given a big role. And now you have majorities disapproving of Trump in cnn, Washington Post and Gallup. And also Trump's own pollster, as we showed you before, has him underwater in swing districts. So Trump's approval pretty consistent trend in all of these polls seems to be trending downward as he now takes on water because of the unpopularity of Musk and Doge actions that they're very possible like you said.
-
Unknown A
Also keep in mind though is that I came pretty damn close in the 2020 election even with what, what did he have like a 30% approval rating? So you never know. There are a lot of people out there who vote for Trump who don't like him. I will say one thing.
-
Unknown C
Well, again, he's not supposed to be on the ballot again, so.
-
Unknown A
Oh true. Hey listen, we'll debate this another time. I'm very for getting rid of the I don't like the Bannon way because they're trying to craft it so that it's only Donald Trump. I think the entire two term limit should be completely gotten rid of. And if Obama wants to run again, let him. I hate Obama as everybody who watches the show know. I think he should have been able to run again. I think Clinton should have been able to run again. Arguably would have been way better off if Clinton had won the 2000 election, you know, in terms of how he would have handled all that. So that 22nd Amendment really did actually cost us some bad. What it did is it created the current dynamic of the swings back and forth and led to the inability for an FDR style king and or president.
-
Unknown A
I know we've had this debate before to basically enshrine 20 years of rule which if that's what America wants then I think that's what America should be able to have.
-
Unknown C
Washington tradition be damned at this point. Completely unprincipled view of this, which is in general, I agree with that and I do not want Donald Trump to be able to run again. So listen but also let the people decide also like you said, they're trying. Okay. So it is. They are not going to be able to pass a constitutional amendment that is not going to happen. So let's just put that out there. So I don't know what other pathways they would pursue. Perhaps just making some like cockamamie theory that they push up to the Supreme Court and hope that those people are just so enthralled with Trump at this point that they give him whatever he wants. But yeah, what they want it to be is that you can't serve two more than two consecutive terms. And so that would rule out Obama, but would rule in Trump.
-
Unknown C
That's what they're going for, which is totally unprincipled.
-
Unknown A
Then I wouldn't hate it. I wouldn't hate it. Just to set the precedent for the future. Maybe what we can have getting really.
-
Unknown C
Old, too, by the way. Like, yeah, let run against him, then.
-
Unknown A
Tell the American people they care about age. Obviously, that's what they said about Biden. So there we go. Hey, if you like that video, hit the like button or leave a comment below. It really helps get the show to more people.
-
Unknown C
And if you'd like to get the full show ad free and in your inbox every morning, you can sign up@breAKING.
-
Unknown A
POINTS.com that's right, get the full show. Help support the future of independent media@breakingpoints.com.