Republicans are more apt than Democrats or independents to favor the demolition of the East Wing, but strong support among Republicans is far smaller than strong opposition among Democrats. Among Republicans, 62% support the project, with 35% strongly in favor. Democratic opposition stands at 88%, including 78% who strongly oppose it, while 61% of independents oppose the project, including 49% who feel that way strongly.
That mere 28% of Americans supporting the demolition means the destruction is eating into Trump’s MAGA base.
Evangelicals and Catholics uneasy with President Trump‘s rhetoric and immigration policies are subtly distancing themselves from MAGA — and taking some congregation members with them.
Driving the news: Some churches are seeing a “quiet quitting” trend as pastors avoid political sermons and help members disengage from Trump’s movement — without ostracizing family members who might still be MAGA devotees.
“We’ve gotten more testimonials. I’m starting to now see ‘Leaving MAGA’ signs popping up on billboards, overpasses, and [at] No Kings protests,” said Rich Logis, a Catholic ex-Trump supporter who founded a group called Leaving MAGA.
-19 net approval rating: Trump’s approval rating dipped to a second-term low of 39% in Economist/YouGov polling, while 58% disapprove of his job performance in the survey taken Oct. 24-27 among 1,623 U.S. adults (margin of error 3.5).
Trump’s net approval rating in the poll is also lower than all but one Economist/YouGov survey taken during his first term.
Trump told reporters Tuesday he has the “highest [poll] numbers I ever had,” repeating a claim he made Monday on Truth Social, despite polling averages and most individual surveys showing his approval rating has declined significantly since he took office in January.
But that poll on the East Wing demolition is telling, even if, with Americans’ short memories, his numbers rebound slightly. Send him to bed without his Big Mac.
Depending on which news outlets one trusts most, Republican support for Trump tariffs is beginning to flag or else Democrats are in increasing disarray and about to “blink” on the budget crisis and sacrifice Obamacare.
Republicans from farm states have had enough of the government shutdown now in its 30th day. Donald Trump’s suggestion on Oct.19 that he might import beef from Argentina has sent them over the edge, Politico reports:
Some of the president’s staunchest Hill allies watched for months as Trump’s tariffs devastated farmers. More recently, they begged his deputies to reopen key farm offices during the shutdown. Then came the beef beef, with one GOP senator granted anonymity to speak candidly calling it a “a betrayal of America First principles.”
Even in the Trump-loyal House, key Republicans are pushing back.
Trump’s whipsawing of his own supporters is eroding his support on Capitol Hill.
The frustrations are also playing out on the Senate floor this week on a series of votes to undo some of Trump’s global tariffs. On Tuesday, five GOP senators joined Democrats to reverse 50 percent tariffs on Brazil; four Republicans voted Wednesday to cancel tariffs on Canada. While the votes are largely symbolic — House Republicans have preempted any challenges to Trump tariffs until February — the message was sent.
Over in the Senate, 10 Republicans have signed to Sen. Josh Hawley’s (R-Mo.) bill to fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) through the shutdown, The Hill reports:
The Keep SNAP Funded Act of 2025 would fund the food aid program for states across the country until the nearly-month-long government shutdown ends and the Department of Agriculture (USDA) can receive its allotments through appropriations or stopgap measures.
“There is no reason any of these residents of my state — or any other American who qualifies for food assistance — should go hungry. We can afford to provide the help,” Hawley wrote in a Tuesday op-ed for The New York Times.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) indicated on Wednesday that Democrats would support Hawley’s bill, if Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R) of South Dakota would allow it to onto the floor for a vote. So far, he won’t. And the USDA refuses to release $6 billion in reserve funds, claiming (falsely) that they are “not legally available to cover regular benefits.“
The monthly cost for SNAP is estimated at $8 billion.
“The Republicans have been on a crusade against SNAP all year,” said Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y. “They slashed it by $200 billion this summer to pay for their tax cuts for billionaires. So they’ve never wanted SNAP, and they don’t want it now. Again, they’re using these 40 million innocent people as pawns.”
Sen. Ben Ray Luján, D-N.M., introduced a bill this week that would require the Trump administration to fund both SNAP and Special Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC). It would also require the government to reimburse states for funding benefits during the shutdown. That’s also a nonstarter of Thune.
Thune on Wednesday shouted that if Democrats want to save SNAP, they must vote to reopen the government (ABC News):
“Let me just point out if I might that we are 29 days into a Democrat shutdown. And the senator from New Mexico is absolutely right. SNAP recipients shouldn’t go without food. People should be getting paid in this country,” Thune said before escalating his voice to a full scream. “And we’ve tried to do that 13 times and you voted no 13 times. This isn’t a political game. These are real peoples lives that we are talking about and you all have just figured out 29 days in that, ‘Oh there might be some consequences, that people are running out of money.'”
Lujan’s bill came as 25 states have filed a lawsuit on the issue ahead of the halting of benefits at the start of November.
“The Trump administration has the authority and the funds to keep SNAP running during this shutdown,” Lujan said. “Any failure to do so right now falls squarely on the Trump administration and Republicans.”
The Republicans’ budget reconciliation bill of July, the law they call the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” cut more than $1 trillion from Medicaid and made dramatic changes to SNAP, including cuts of $187 billion from SNAP over ten years. Crucially, the Republicans designed those cuts to go into effect after the 2026 midterm elections.
But their refusal to extend the premium tax credits and end the government shutdown has given Americans an early taste of what those changes will mean.
Democrats just need to “get off their ass,” the man shouted out the window at the traffic light during Wednesday rush hour. He was replying to my sign that declared 29,000 county residents will lose SNAP benefits on Saturday. Presumably, he prefers that Democrats cave on the Trump funding bill stalled in the House. It eliminates ACA premium subsidies that nearly 80 percent of Americans want extended. It would permanently more than double (if not triple) health premium costs for over 24 million Americans. Or 40 million Americans can go hungry until shutdown’s end. He’s willing to split that baby. Democrats so far are not.
Powell: "In the near term, risks to inflation are tilted to the upside, and risks to employment to the downside — a challenging situation. There is no risk-free path for policy as we navigate this tension between our employment and inflation goals."
Powell: "Job gains have slowed significantly since earlier in the year. A good part of the slowing likely reflects a decline in the growth of the labor force due to lower immigration and labor force participation, though labor demand has clearly softened as well."
Two federal prosecutors have been placed on administrative leave just hours after describing the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol as perpetrated by “thousands of people comprising a mob of rioters,” according to two people familiar with the move who were granted anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
The accurate description of the attack came in a sentencing recommendation for Taylor Taranto, who was among those pardoned by President Donald Trump for his role in the riot. But Taranto had also been charged for unrelated threats and firearms crimes for which he is slated to be sentenced Friday.
Assistant U.S. Attorneys Carlos Valdivia and Samuel White urged U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols to sentence Taranto to more than two years in prison for a hoax threat against the National Institute of Standards and Technology and for driving through former President Barack Obama’s neighborhood with a van full of firearms and ammunition.
[…]
The memo also describes an incident the same month in which Taranto visited an elementary school in Maryland while seeking Democratic Rep. Jamie Raskin, a top Trump adversary.
The threat to Obama was precipitated by Donald Trump posting Obama’s address on Truth Social.
I’m not kidding.
The sentencing memo was submitted to the court and quickly withdrawn and the press only knows about it because someone had it on file before they managed to do it. And then the prosecutors were “suspended” and replaced by someone else.
Apparently, January 6th never happened. We all suffered from a mass hallucination. Maybe it was a hoax!
This is the second time in a week that we’re seeing excuses and cover-ups for January 6th pardon recipients threatening Democratic politicians, on explicitly political terms.
Q: Getting back to the threat to Hakeem Jeffries, this is one of a number of January 6 pardons that have been rearrested on various charges. Did Trump make a mistake?
MIKE JOHNSON: I don't know any of the details of this at all. I will tell you this — the violence on the left… pic.twitter.com/pFYEE6usbB
MIKE JOHNSON: I don’t know any of the details of this at all. I will tell you this — the violence on the left is far more prevalent than the violence on the right. The rhetoric that you saw on Saturday plays into this.
He was referring to the peaceful, lawful No Kings day protests in which nobody stormed building and beat up any cops. Ok.
They are all on board with this sophistry:
Sen. Eric Schmitt on political violence: "Let's be clear: this isn't a both sides thing right now. This is happening on the left … look at what happened when the Catholic school kids were being shot at in church." (The Annunciation shooting was not an act of political violence… pic.twitter.com/VJdGE0Wx22
That shooting was not political violence. It was an ordinary every day mass shooting which these people don’t give a shit about.
I won’t bother to say there’s a double standard here. It’s way beyond that. They are simply defying reality in order to lick Dear Leaders boots. All of them.
He’s always posted 24/7 and I suppose it’s makes sense that once in a while he’d post something like this, right?
No actually, it doesn’t. I’m online most of my waking hours and I’m often sleep deprived and I’ve never done this. It requires an extra step to post something on Truth Social, just as it does on all the social media platforms. How does someone fall asleep while typing and then hit post?
Recall that this comes after he mistakenly posted his directive to Pam Bondi on Truth Social as well. Maybe somebody needs to take grandpa’s phone away?
Ted Cruz: "My advice is don't spend much time worrying about what Marjorie is saying. What I've found is that whenever an elected official decides that they are going to turn on Israel and hate Israel, you will very quickly see every other policy out of their mouth become very… pic.twitter.com/jowCodVfBl
“My advice is don’t spend much time worrying about what Marjorie is saying. What I’ve found is that whenever an elected official decides that they are going to turn on Israel and hate Israel, you will very quickly see every other policy out of their mouth become very very liberal. And so suddenly Marjorie is for massive government spending.”
Interesting. Steve Bannon has been publicly worrying about support for Israel hurting the party with young Republicans. And there is a large and increasingly influential Nazi faction in the MAGA movement. I’m pretty sure they’re not pro-Israel. (Of course, they hate Arabs and Muslims too but that’s beside the point.)
Greene is an interesting case. She’s either a canary in the MAGA coal mine or she’s putting herself on her own island. She has a following and fundraising prowess, at least for now. Marge is actually a throwback to the old isolationist, pro-fascists of the pre-WWII era and she may just represent a legit faction in the MAGA coalition. In my lifetime, Republicans always get very aroused at the prospect of war and death so we’ll see how far that goes.
Meanwhile, in Alabama:
Some Jewish voters in New York are concerned about a Muslim candidate for mayor Zoran Mamdani But this white man Jeremy Wayne Shoemaker was just arrested for plotting to shoot up Jewish synagogues. pic.twitter.com/RV07nSq1Bt
Immigration is the defining issue of Donald Trump’s political life. His idiotic but evocative promise to build a wall fueled his 2016 campaign. His first term was defined by the cruelty of putting kids in cages. He won reelection largely because of anger over how Biden and Harris handled the border.
The horrifying videos of masked ICE agents terrorizing communities are now the signature images of Trump’s second term.
While revenge and graft seem to be Trump’s greatest passions, it’s his revanchist, extreme anti-immigration agenda that motivates the people around him. Stephen Miller speaks in apocalyptic terms about immigrants destroying American culture. The Department of Homeland Security is amplifying white supremacist dog whistles. The policy hacks are pulling every lever of government to expel as many legal immigrants as possible and treat anyone undocumented with maximum cruelty.
Guess what?
Trump began his term with broad support on immigration. In the 2024 exit polls, he held a nine-point advantage over Kamala Harris on the issue and won 12 percent of voters who said immigration was their top issue—by 80 points.
At the outset of his presidency, his immigration approval was in the low 50s, with disapproval in the low 40s. But as the true nature of his mass deportation agenda has become clear, his numbers have fallen. Today, Trump is more than three points underwater.
As a general rule of politics: you don’t want to be underwater on your “best issue.”
Especially when you’re underwater in double digits on all the other issues people say are most important to them.
Only 34% support ICE agents wearing masks in public.
52% of independents oppose masked ICE agents.
Voters Don’t Trust Who ICE Is Targeting
47% say ICE is going after peaceful people, not criminals.
Independents are 35 points more likely than Republicans to believe ICE is targeting non-threats.
Support Drops When Voters See How Deportations Happen
45% say deportations make them feel safer overall.
But when deportations are described as “ICE raids in public spaces,” only 36% feel safer—34% say less safe.
They should feel less safe. These thugs are going after anyone they think is in their way and being an American citizen of any race is no barrier.
He says that Trump’s strategy of showing the images of his crackdown work against him and Democrats should make sure people see them. He points out the obvious, as reflected in that Gallup poll above, which I haven’t seen anyone else do, mainly because they’re terrified at the term “pro-immigration.”
Trump’s mass deportation agenda is so cruel, so extreme, and so visible that it is actually making Americans more pro-immigration.
And that means, Democrats could “restructure and reform ICE from the ground up, purge its leadership, end the cruelty baked into its enforcement practices and pass comprehensive immigration reform that secures the border and provides a path to citizenship for millions.”
I suspect that all the strategists are freaking out at the very idea since they believe that Democrats must avoid even thinking about any issue for which they (erroneously) believe the Republicans have an advantage. But truly smart pols would be looking to the future and casting off the pre-cooked assumptions about Republican dominance. This should be one of the issues they jump on.
Most Americans don’t want to live in a police state and they don’t like to see militarized thugs on their streets brutalizing people with impunity. If we manage to live through this phase, they need to realize that this is their advantage.
Trump: The welcome and the beautiful honor you bestowed on me as the only American president. That's really a great tribute to our country. Not to me. It's a great tribute to our country, but I had it focused toward you as opposed to against you, which some people did. pic.twitter.com/c40sDKk3X8
What juvenile has DHS hired to create its not-very-subtle, white nationalist social media posts?
“The horrifying videos of masked ICE agents terrorizing communities are now the signature images of Trump’s second term,” Dan Pfeiffer explains. He makes a greater point that needs making (emphasis mine):
While revenge and graft seem to be Trump’s greatest passions, it’s his revanchist, extreme anti-immigration agenda that motivates the people around him. Stephen Miller speaks in apocalyptic terms about immigrants destroying American culture. The Department of Homeland Security is amplifying white supremacist dog whistles. The policy hacks are pulling every lever of government to expel as many legal immigrants as possible and treat anyone undocumented with maximum cruelty.
Immigration has long been Trump’s political cudgel—used to beat Democrats into submission. The whole premise of high-profile ICE raids, complete with social media crews in tow, is to bait Democrats into a debate on what Trump believes is his strongest issue. He wants to position himself on the side of “law and order” and paint Democrats as defenders of criminals and drug traffickers. This is the reflexive response—delivered with maximum smugness—to any criticism of ICE’s conduct.
If reversing illegal immigration was Trump 2.0’s sales pitch during last year’s campaign, by now it is simply a cover story. The real game here is white nationalism. Examine Stephen Miller’s tweets, if you dare. Or the DHS social media feed’s white nationalist dog whistles. The one at top characterizes its task as destroying “the Flood,” treating undcumented immigrants as parasitic aliens from the HALO franchise.
But it’s not just the dogwhistles doing damage. It’s the lies in which Trump 2.0 trafficks. Marcy Wheeler shines a spotlight on the “flood” of lies from DHS spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin, known for the smugness Pfeiffer mentions. McLaughlin is so proud of it that she’s pinned one display to the top of her X feed. Daily Beast posted a long piece on McLaughlin’s playing fast and loose with facts surrounding ICE arrests.
REMINDER:
Trica lies more than Baghdad Bob did.
You should hold her up as an object of ridicule. In NO circumstances should you believe anything she says, because she very rarely says ANYTHING that resembles reality. https://t.co/1tLiGFtcLX
Radley Balko points to a recent case in which “a cross-deputized federal agent” enjoys immunity for fabricating a sex-trafficking ring. The Minnesota officer, Heather Weyker, jailed an innocent woman for two years pending a trial that never took place. But Weyker acting in a federal capacity gave Hamdi Mohamud no recourse to sue for damages.
This case underscores how SCOTUS made it impossible to hold immigration cops accountable for the abuses you see in all those videos.A federal task force cop manufactured evidence to put an innocent woman behind bars for two years. Because of SCOTUS-conferred immunity, the case never got to a jury.
The Washington Post this morning reports that DHS is posting false and misleading (propagandistic) footage to support its pogrom against nonwhites:
Officials in President Donald Trump’s administration have used similarly misleading footage in at least six videos promoting its immigration agenda shared in the last three months, a Washington Post analysis found, muddying the reality of events in viral clips that have been viewed millions of times.
McLaughlin dismissed the errors as insignificant.
This is a full-on propaganda effort:
DHS’s video operation now includes in-house photographers and videographers who routinely capture the action of ICE raids and protest responses for videos that administration officials have widely promoted online. In a video DHS posted to X this month, a man in a Border Patrol flak jacket, his camera held aloft, can be seen jogging to catch up with officers putting a detainee into an SUV.
The administration’s intense digital strategy has helped grab Americans’ attention and shape discussion around current events, with some of its videos now capturing bigger audiences on social media than mainstream news reports. A White House video claiming Chicago was “in chaos,” which used footage from other states, has been viewed more than 1.4 million times across Instagram, TikTok and X.
It is no accident that American citizens (brown ones) are being snared by ICE in its white-nationalist zeal to rid the country of undesirables. Americans are increasingly unhappy about ICE targets and methods.
A federal judge in Illinois on Tuesday took to task Gregory Bovino, a senior Border Patrol official, both for ICE’s heavy-handed tactics in Chicago and for violating her orders on not using chemical crowd-control agents:
For more than an hour, the judge, Sara L. Ellis of Federal District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, read Mr. Bovino restrictions she had previously set as part of a lawsuit over tactics that agents are using and cited examples of times his agents appeared to violate those restrictions.
They used tear gas in a neighborhood where children were about to march in a Halloween parade, Judge Ellis said. They failed to warn residents before tossing tear gas canisters at them, she said, noting an incident in which an agent threw a canister out of a car as it drove away.
The judge then ordered Mr. Bovino, who took the stand in his usual green fatigues and Border Patrol insignia, to appear at the federal courthouse at the end of every weekday to personally provide her with a report on the day’s arrests and incidents.
Which is to say, federal judges in the Midwest. at least, are tired of the lies and bullshit excuses from ICE. There is no audio, but the transcript drips with scorn from Ellis.
Ellis "It may be that what I am seeing is the result if one of three things:"1. Perhaps the order is unclear2. No one read the order3. "Folks actively chose to ignore it"Ellis said it could not be No. 3, because that would violate Bovino's oath
