The following is a lightly edited transcript of the April 20 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Is MAGA shrinking before our very eyes? In recent days, Donald Trump unleashed more tirades about ex-allies in the MAGA movement who’ve criticized him over the war and other things. Trump’s own pollster added more in a new interview, with both saying Trump’s critics don’t count as MAGA anymore.
In a sense, they’re both saying that you will get excommunicated if your devotion to Trump is not absolute. The real message here seems to be quite clearly that MAGA really is a cult.
This captures so much about this moment—Trump’s deepening unpopularity, the fracturing of his coalition, and the tenuousness of MAGA’s future as it keeps throwing out big voices. We’re talking about all of it with New Republic staff writer Perry Bacon, who has a great new piece on the global right turning on Trump. Perry, good to have you on.
Perry Bacon: Good to see you, Greg. Thanks for having me.
Sargent: So Donald Trump exploded in self-pity and megalomania on Truth Social, and this one had something special. He said this:
“I have among the best poll numbers I have ever had, and why shouldn’t I? ALL THE COUNTRY DOES IS WIN.”
Then Trump attacked MAGA critics this way:
“I hear Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson, and Candace Owens are fading fast. Their numbers are terrible. They were FAKE MAGA, and now they’ve been exposed!”
Perry, we used to joke that MAGA is whatever Trump says it is, but here he’s making that really clear. Anyone who dares to criticize him is “fake MAGA.” What do you make of that?
Bacon: Very explicit. As you said, we’ve been talking about a movement or whether MAGA is a movement or an ideology or something else, or just Donald Trump. I’ve written and used that phrase to mean other things, but Donald Trump is saying what I’ve always thought, which is that MAGA is Donald Trump and will be gone the moment he’s off the scene, whenever that is.
Sargent: Yeah, absolutely. By the way, on Trump’s claim that his polls are as good as ever—guess what? That’s not true. One set of polling averages that you noted in your piece has his approval at 38 percent to 58 percent, some 20 points underwater. He’s worse on the economy in many polls: CNN had it at 31 percent, and his approval on inflation at 27 percent, which is just extraordinary. That’s the issue voters care most about.
Perry, what’s your general sense of where public opinion is on Trump right now? As we record, he seems to be announcing some sort of deal with Iran. Maybe he gets a couple of points out of that, maybe not. What do you think?
Bacon: I think the question for him is there’s a core of Republicans who are at probably 35 to 40 percent of the electorate—people who are hardcore Republicans, always vote Republican. Can you get below that floor number in this era? If you remember, there are two times this happened where a president got below that. George W. Bush got to the high 20s, low 30s at the end of his administration—after Hurricane Katrina, after the Iraq War, and after the economic meltdown. Those were the big events that happened. Trump got to the low 30s right after the January 6 insurrection, when pretty much everybody in the world, including Mitch McConnell and lots of Republicans, were criticizing him.
So can he get below 35? I don’t know. I would have said a war that goes poorly and lasts a long time, but this war maybe is not that long and is maybe going to end soon. He’s probably getting near his lowest possible number, which is probably in the 36 to 38 percent range.
Sargent: Well, I want to highlight some quotes from Trump’s pollster, Jim McLaughlin. He talked to Politico. I’m going to quote one of them. He said this: “The base doesn’t consider a Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly, or a Candace Owens a conservative anymore.”
Perry, that’s so revealing. These are people—I want to stress this—who criticized Trump for going to war, which absolutely does betray his promise to voters. That’s what Trump was supposed to represent to Trump voters: no more wars. Whereas Kamala Harris was supposed to be the Liz Cheney shill or whatever, the candidate of the globalists and the warmongering establishment in D.C.
But for pointing that out, they’ve been declared non-MAGA. That’s a window into what Trump and his pollster actually think of his voters. They really believe that those voters will think whatever thought Trump tells them to.
Bacon: Yes. To be fair to them, they have some evidence of that. Remember, there were polls in 2016 that showed Republicans used to pretty much be opposed to Russia. Then a lot of them started approving of Russia.... They used to say, We don’t want an adulterer as president. Then they changed their mind about that.
The idea that the base is Trump supporters and the base believes whatever Trump said that day is pretty much what’s happened the last 10 years. Most days, Republicans rewire their opinions about policy—not the moderate Republican part of it, that 10 percent of people who vote Republican but are not MAGA, but that core base has moved wherever he’s gone. When he endorses someone in a primary, they immediately go up in the polls. This has been a bit of a cult-like support for him. So his pollster is saying something that—I’m sure the average Trump voter would not say, I do whatever Trump says—but they have behaved that way for the last 10 years.
Sargent: As we all know, people who cover this stuff as relentlessly as you and I do—unfortunately for us—this is not exclusive to Republican voters by any means. Voters tend to develop their allegiances on identity grounds. Policy isn’t that important to them. They say that they support this or that policy sometimes as a statement of identity and allegiance.
You’re aware of this, but this does look like something a little different to me. It’s fair to say that it’s as bad as it’s ever been with this group, don’t you think?
Bacon: Yeah, to give an example—people often follow the guidance of their political leaders. A good example was in 2012, the majority of African Americans opposed gay marriage. Then Barack Obama—a respected person who’s president, but also very respected among African Americans—says I’m for gay marriage and immediately the majority shifted their views. They rethought the issue because of a leader in his case.
I’m making this point only because you’ve talked about the political science of this. But I don’t think Barack Obama ever said, The Democratic base is whatever I think. And he would never have said Rachel Maddow, Chris Hayes, and Joy Reid are not part of the Democratic base, which is essentially what you’re saying if you’re saying Tucker and so on don’t count.
Democratic voters—a lot of my friends will follow what a Biden or AOC or a Bernie or a Warren says. I won’t deny that. But those people also tend to speak in terms of accuracy and normalcy and so on. If you’re a Democrat, you might be modeling yourself after people, but those people believe in democratic norms and election results and so on.
Sargent: That’s such a good point. I hadn’t even thought of it. But obviously, Barack Obama feuded with his progressive critics a lot during his two terms. We remember all that. They would rip him apart over all kinds of things.
Bacon: And he would defend himself, but he would never go on Twitter and trash them and say, They’re not real liberals, which is what we’re just seeing now.
Sargent: He would never say, I am the movement—whatever the equivalent of MAGA is on the Obama side.
There’s an irony here that’s probably worth highlighting, which is that Obama’s Republican critics absolutely portrayed him as a cult leader to his followers, fairly relentlessly. It was a really big refrain during the Obama years. In fairness, there was a lot of adoration for Obama, no question.
But it’s just weirdly ironic that they lobbed that criticism, and Trump is explicitly saying, I tell my voters what to think—period, end of story.
Bacon: He’s invoking the idea that he should be compared to Jesus Christ. This is something I never would have thought Republican voters would have been for before. So yes.
Sargent: I would love to see some polling on that. How do you anticipate that shapes up? Probably what we’ll see is that evangelicals overwhelmingly support him trashing the pope. Catholic voters, I’m not so sure. What do you think?
Bacon: The fact that JD Vance—who is not usually conciliatory—has been giving some comments like, I respect the pope, but we disagree. His comments have not been as sharp as usual. These people are very conservative and attack everyone, but I think they’re aware that attacking the pope is probably not smart, in part because that doesn’t just offend Catholics in the United States.
It also offends Catholics in Europe, many of whom are Trump’s allies—leaders in places like Italy and Germany. The far right and the conservatives in Europe that Trump wants to be aligned with also do not want to see him bash the pope because the pope is fairly popular in many European countries.
Sargent: Right. We should probably add that among those constituencies that these far-right leaders in Europe rely on, Trump himself is very unpopular.
Bacon: Yes. This is a key thing we’re seeing more. There was a piece in the Financial Times in which Boris Johnson was criticizing Trump and in which Nigel Farage was. We’re seeing for the first time the far-right leaders who agree with Trump on immigration—they’re politicians first and they want to win elections. That’s their job. They’re seeing, Trump is very unpopular in my country. I have to distance myself from him. That’s happening more and more abroad.
Sargent: Your piece made that point really well. I want to get to that in a second. First, I want to highlight one more quote from Trump’s pollster, Jim McLaughlin. He says: “There are no real divisions among the GOP MAGA base. They overwhelmingly support President Trump and his policies.” Perry, I just don’t understand this spin.
His people keep saying that the MAGA core is with Trump. But so what? What about the young voters and nonwhite working-class voters—the voters that Trump won in 2024? What about independents? He’s losing these groups in huge numbers over the war and other things. How does MAGA elect people without those voters? They’re not exactly MAGA, but MAGA needs them. I guess the question is this: Can MAGA survive if it keeps getting whittled down to a more and more fanatical core?
Bacon: A lot of pollsters will ask, first of all, Are you part of MAGA? And then they will ask, Do you approve of Trump? In some ways, the people who say they’re part of MAGA—that means they’re a Trump voter. It’s not really telling us more than that.
If you’re in the core 30 percent of people who say, I’m MAGA, Trump’s approval was 90 percent among them. But remember, Trump got 50 percent of the vote—the MAGA group is 30, 35 percent. There’s that big 15 percent, as you’re referring to—some Latinos, some African Americans who moved from the Democrats to Republicans, some people who were independents.
Right now, if you look at the polls in North Carolina, look at the polls in Ohio, look at the polls in Alaska—that’s the problem. You have these people who were Republican voters, or were in 2024 at least, who are not MAGA and who do not like where the prices are going, do not like inflation, do not like this Iran war and do not like all the madness of Trump being himself. That’s the core of it that they’ve got to be worried about. The pollster is only saying, The base is with us, but neither party’s base alone can win elections. You have to have those other people in it.
Sargent: That’s a really good point about the Senate map. I want to ask you a little more about it. Obviously the Senate map is tough for Democrats. They need to flip four seats that are in really tough territory.
But as you point out, for Republicans to hold onto those seats in some of these states, they need a large chunk of non-MAGA. And in these states, it looks like there’s really a fairly strong desire for a check on Trump. It doesn’t take much for a non-MAGA voter who voted for Trump because of inflation to say, This guy isn’t delivering on my stuff and he’s out of control. This Democrat who’s running here has a strong personality and has distinguished him or herself from the national party and has deep ties to the state and so forth—it’s not that hard for that group of voters to get over to supporting that Democrat. Can you talk about this dynamic?
Bacon: I’m never going to say Democrats are going to win Texas because people say that all the time and it never happens. But even a place like Texas—Trump is net unpopular—and so therefore if you’re [James] Talarico, you probably aren’t going to win, but there’s room to go there because if 55 percent of Texans disapprove of Trump, that’s your potential electorate.
A lot of them are Republican voters. If you look at Alaska, Ohio, Texas, the Democratic candidates are going to have to win some actual Republicans. In Maine and North Carolina, you can probably just win the election on Democrats alone. North Carolina is very narrowly between the parties. In those three places, Democrats have to win something like Ohio, Alaska, Texas—probably two of those. Those are going to be tough.
If the election were today, I think it would be really close because this Iran story—a lot of Republicans don’t support this either. If we had the election today, the Republicans would be in danger because they have not only messed up the economy, but they’ve gone into foreign policy in a way voters don’t agree with. But I’m assuming Trump is going to get out of this war in part because he sees the same poll numbers.
Sargent: There are strong Democratic candidates in a number of these states. North Carolina is a really interesting tell. The fact that it really does look like Democrats are on track to win there—it’s going to be super tight, it’s North Carolina—but that is a key tell, don’t you think?
Bacon: One thing to keep in mind is we really are talking about: Is there a Democratic majority in 2029? That’s the really key win. My hope at least would be there’s a Democratic president, a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate in 2029. If it happens in 2027, that’s not big for policy. If the Democrats get two or three seats in 2026 and then one or two more, that ends up getting you to 50, 51. That’s the key thing here. That’s what I’m looking for. I’m curious about Maine—I agree with [Graham] Platner on issues, I’m a little nervous about his bio, if he’s ready for primetime, but people like him up there so far.
Sargent: This is why it’s so baffling to me that Trump and his people keep spinning MAGA is with him. Because, so what? That’s not going to matter for the battle for the House and the battle for the Senate.
Onto your piece—you looked at how some of the leaders of the global right are now distancing themselves from Trump. The main factors are the unpopularity of the war pretty much everywhere, the rise in energy prices, the feud with the pope and so forth. You made this great point, which is that this will impact domestic politics here, lending a boost to the opposition to Trump in the U.S. As you put it, Trump is now isolated and diminished. Can you talk about that?
Bacon: The key thing is we’re 10 years into this. If you’re a liberal—if you’re Perry Bacon or Greg Sargent, Nancy Pelosi, of course you criticize Trump. They have a phrase for it: Trump Derangement Syndrome. That’s all silly, but those of us who’ve been correctly criticizing Trump for 10 years, we’re not saying anything new. In a certain way, we’re repeating ourselves.
But when the pope, or when a leader of the Reform Party in the UK, or when a leader of the AfD party in Germany—when these people who are conservatives who unfortunately oppose immigration and like a lot of Trump’s policy ideas—when these people are criticizing him, it’s a different story entirely. Because those are not predictable liberals. Those are conservatives.
We have a Republican Party in the United States now where you never hear any criticism of Trump because being a Republican functionally means liking Trump. But conservatives abroad do not have to behave that way, and they’re not. That matters. Whatever the pope says is news. In a certain sense, the pope criticizing you is a big story. The fact that the pope is repeatedly criticizing Trump is a very important dynamic of politics.
Sargent: Let’s tie this all together. If Trump is already losing huge swaths of the coalition that elected him in 2024, and he and his top allies are going to expel everyone who disagrees with him or doesn’t grant him unquestioned loyalty, where do they go from here?
Bacon: You can probably win the governorships and Senate races in 25 states just as the Republican base. Part of what it is is that they don’t seem to really—we’ve credited them a lot, but it’s not clear to me that Donald Trump’s staff actually exactly knows why they won those Latino, younger, and Black voters in 2024. I think that was kind of an accident and an anti-incumbent wave.
I don’t think those voters were ever in their coalition in the first place. I think that they don’t know how to keep those people because that’s not really what they were doing. They sort of accidentally won some new people. Then Trump for most of these last 10 years has governed as if the base is the country. He’s just doing what he does. He’s not actually a great politician. We saw in 2018—anytime he’s in office and people are paying attention to him, the Republicans lose.
Sargent: Absolutely right. And by the way, the war is really, really the type of issue that’s driving those groups away from Trump really, really fast and really, really hard. Folks, make sure to check out Perry’s show over at TNR.com. It’s called Right Now. Perry, great to talk to you. Thanks for coming on.
Bacon: Thanks for having me, Greg.