Hugely Unpopular Trump Thinks Hyping Himself Will Win the Midterms

President Donald Trump wants to turn the midterm elections into a Trumpfest in what could be a massive gift to Democratic lawmakers.

The Atlantic reported Tuesday that Trump met with his top political advisers early this month to create a strategy for spending his super PAC’s $400 million war chest ahead of November. Trump’s solution in the face of apparent Democratic favorability? To buy advertisements focusing on his own record, according to three people familiar with the meeting.

House and Senate Democrats are planning to use the election as a referendum on the president, Trump told his advisers. He wanted to double down by highlighting his scant victories. “Go look at the clips,” the president instructed his staff, one person told The Atlantic. “I cite accomplishments all the time.”

It’s no secret that Trump is the Republicans’ best communicator (yikes), but the president’s so-called “Golden Age” isn’t going so well. His choice to turn November’s midterm elections into a Trumpfest comes as his approval ratings have hit a record low and his disastrous policies are threatening to alienate even his most staunch supporters.

Things have gotten so bad that Republican candidates are actively distancing themselves from the president and his lackeys. Trump is about to make that a lot harder.

President Donald Trump is claiming that the recently deceased country music legend Dolly Parton was a big fan of his, even though she made a point to support the LGBTQ community, proclaimed that Black lives mattered, and remained politically neutral throughout her life—never endorsing Trump.

“We all knew her so well. I knew her a little bit.... She really liked me,” Trump said on the Glenn Beck Program Wednesday morning, suggesting that Parton never came out publicly in support of him because she would lose “20 percent of the fans.”

Parton died on Tuesday at the age of 80.

Trump is using the death of a universally beloved artist as an opportunity to talk about himself. It’s much easier to make claims about how someone felt or didn’t feel once they’re no longer here to make it known themselves.

And for what it’s worth, nothing about Parton suggested some secret support for Trump. She was an outspoken advocate for the queer community and spoke out against a transgender ban in Tennessee in 2023, saying she just wanted everyone “to be treated good.” In 2020, she stated that “of course Black lives matter. Do we think our white asses are the only ones that matter?” She was also vaccinated against Covid-19 and donated $1 million to Vanderbilt University, which helped fund the Moderna vaccine.

“I don’t do politics,” Parton once said on a podcast. “I have too many fans on both sides of the fence. Of course, I have my opinion about everything, but I learned years ago to keep your mouth shut about things.”

And yet we have Trump assigning her an ideology in death, getting in his last petty little points—something only a president as callous as him would do.

A clean energy group has quietly managed to derail several Republican races.

The Invest in Tomorrow Coalition PAC has raised and spent millions of dollars to dethrone at least three conservative figureheads that have backtracked on their green energy promises. Its latest victim: South Carolina Senate candidate Ralph Norman.

The group’s third major political coup occurred Tuesday evening, when Norman lost to Darline Graham, sister of the late Senator Lindsey Graham. The group, which is backed by solar executives and investors, told Politico that it had spent nearly $1 million to undermine the lawmaker’s odds.

Earlier this year, the group’s ad buys stymied Representative Chip Roy’s unsuccessful attempt to become Texas’s attorney general. The PAC also spent roughly $2 million to unseat Tennessee Representative Andy Ogles—an effort that came to fruition earlier this month, when the incumbent was defeated by a former state official.

The Invest in Tomorrow Coalition’s vendettas are nothing short of personal: Norman, Roy, and Ogles had pushed their caucus to nix clean energy incentives in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

“The clean energy industry’s political muscle is only getting stronger and more intimidating,” Invest in Tomorrow Coalition co-founder Michael Brune told Politico. “Our hope here is that clean energy will go back to being a bipartisan issue, and maybe one of the few issues that all Americans can agree on. But before we get there, we’ve got to continue our retribution tour and take out a few more members who have voted the wrong way.”

Norman, for instance, effectively backstabbed the renewable energy industry when he tried to kill the Biden administration’s wind and solar tax credits, despite co-launching the Congressional Solar Caucus in 2018.

“Norman’s somewhat even traitorous to the clean energy industry and solar industry,” Tom Matzzie, chair of the Invest in Tomorrow Coalition and a solar CEO, told Politico. “It’s about stopping Norman, but it’s also about sending a message to other members of Congress that if they try to hurt the industry, we’re going to fight back.”

With wins under its belt and millions in the bank, the group could prove to be one of 2026’s most formidable election season foes. So far, the group has raised more than $6.8 million, according to data collected by the Federal Election Commission.

Does President Trump even know how trade talks with Canada fell apart?

After negotiations with Canada imploded last week, both sides started pointing fingers. U.S. officials like JD Vance blamed Canada for introducing new asks late in the talks, while Canadian officials claimed that it was the U.S. that brought unreasonable eleventh-hour demands to the table.

In a phone call, CNN’s Jim Sciutto asked Trump whether the U.S. had been the one to make late-stage demands. The president seemed to have no recollection of these events.

“That sounds like me,” he said, adding, “They have to pay a fair amount. And if they don’t pay a fair amount, we won’t make a deal. That’s fine.”

Right before the deadline, American negotiators reportedly walked back their promise to drop tariffs on Canadian automobiles from 25 to 15 percent, revealing that they planned to exclude medium and heavy-duty trucks. They also tried to restrict Canada’s ability to strike trade deals with other countries. It was also reported that one reason Canadian negotiators walked away was that the U.S. made what were, in their view, unreasonable demands restricting French-language product documentation.

“Our culture, our language, is central to our identity, and it is important to exclude that from the negotiating table,” Canadian Premier Christine Fréchette said, “Even though we are threatened with different tariffs, it won’t change. We will stay the way we are.”

Trump has since threatened to double tariffs to 50 percent on roughly $28 billion worth of products starting on January 1. In response, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a slate of retaliatory tariffs on about 700 products up to 50 percent that will go into effect on September 8.

A federal judge struck down a Texas ban on drag shows on Tuesday, ruling it was unconstitutional—and that anyone who really has that much of a problem with it just shouldn’t go.

The law known as Texas Senate Bill 12, which is supported and enforced by Attorney General and Republican Senate nominee Ken Paxton, would have fined business owners up to $10,000 for hosting events with “sexually oriented performances.” The performers themselves faced the potential of a Class A misdemeanor, which can carry up to a year in jail.

U.S. District Judge David Hittner, a Reagan appointee, ruled that the law was a vague and unconstitutional restriction on free speech.

“For those who find such activities as described in this case offensive, the solution is relatively simple ... just don’t go,” he wrote.

Hittner also used Elvis Presley, Miley Cyrus, and recently deceased country music legend Dolly Parton as examples of why the drag ban was unconstitutional.

“Just as many people criticized Elvis’s signature hip gyrations and were offended by his display of male sexuality, chastised Dolly Parton as a voluptuous sex symbol because of her big hair, flamboyant clothes and breast exposure, and shamed Miley Cyrus for ‘twerking’ on stage during a live performance at the 2013 MTV Video Music Awards, there are ‘erotic’ elements in countless popular performances that could be subject to both civil and criminal penalties under S.B. 12,” he wrote.

“The Texas drag ban was blocked the same day we lost Dolly Parton. I couldn’t have ever guessed this day,” said Brigitte Bandit, a drag queen and plaintiff in the case who often performed as Parton. “Drag is free speech, bitch.”