Up next in 10
As Trump's approval ratings hit an all time low, Simon Marks is back to analyse the American electorate's growing grievances with the President as the midterms edge ever closer.
0:05 | Trump's approval rating slumps
0:35 | US and Iran strikes intensify
1:38 | US economy grows sluggish 1.5%
2:59 | Will the Democrats fumble midterms?
4:40 | The Democrats are strapped for cash
5:22 | The Democrats' internal battle
7:50 | Will the Democrats fumble midterms?
8:55 | Fauci invokes the Fifth during hearing
11:18 | Fauci receives 'unusual' support'
12"06 | 'Trump's Transaction Tax' in full swing
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0:00
At the end of this American week, Donald Trump's goose looks as though it's completely cooked
0:05
Three separate opinion polls, all of them by respected organisations, show just how far the president has fallen
0:12
His approval rating just 32% in the latest Quinnipiac University poll. An Associated Press survey shows him at 33%, CNN gives him 34%
0:23
But these are all catastrophic numbers. less than 100 days before midterm elections that the White House long ago conceded
0:31
will be a referendum on his presidency. We're going to be hitting them very hard because it's our turn to hit them
0:38
They know it's coming. They're asking us not to do it. President Trump on Wednesday announcing that a five-night pause in hostilities with Iran was over
0:46
because after the Iranians launched missiles that the U.S. shot down before they reached an American base in Jordan
0:53
the president said it was America's turn to fire back. All five rockets were knocked down to the ground
1:00
but they nevertheless took a shot, so it's our turn. And we'll see if we get there with an agreement at some point
1:07
but we're going to hit them very hard. While he's in the playground like a five-year-old
1:11
figuring out whose turn is it to fire the next round of ballistic missiles
1:15
and by the way, he's running out of them, he now belatedly admits, support for his war on Iran is cratering
1:22
It is a major driver of his approval ratings collapse. The price of petrol has hit $4.10 a gallon on average
1:30
With the Strait of Hormuz still closed, there is no sign of that price sinking like a stone, as he has repeatedly promised
1:38
This week, we learned that economic growth collapsed to just 1.5% during the second quarter of the year
1:45
David Challion, CNN's excellent Washington bureau chief and political director, broke the numbers down for his viewers
1:52
He's underperforming on the most prominent issues of the day than his overall approval
1:58
I mean, on gas prices, 21 percent approval. Inflation, the issue that sort of brought him back to the Oval Office
2:04
he promised to lower prices. He's only at 25 percent approval. And so even if you look at the top, like immigration, one of his former strong suits
2:12
He still only sits at 39 percent approval. So there's not an issue where he is
2:17
He can sort of tout as a major success. But really troubling for him and his party is that we know the economy is issue number one
2:23
And he is just very, very low in those numbers on that issue. So low that many political ysts believe the president is now dead in the water
2:32
even if his announcement today about the possible dearmament of Hamas in Gaza
2:37
turns out both to be true and genuinely an actionable breakthrough. No president has ever bounced back from the kind of numbers Trump is now facing
2:48
and certainly not in time for November's midterm elections that, on paper
2:53
the Democrats should now confidently be expecting to win in a landslide
2:58
And yet there is still every possibility that Democrats are in fact going to confound those expectations and snatch defeat from the jaws of victory I saw the writing on the wall early on I remember talking about some of the issues that were going on That is David Hogg a gun control activist who for a short time
3:18
was vice chairman of the Democratic Party's National Committee. It's the central organising structure of the party
3:24
and it raises much of the money needed to fight elections in congressional districts all over the country
3:31
The DNC is now in abject crisis with calls for its leader, Ken Martin, to be fired amid a slew of allegations
3:41
The committee is financially bankrupt. It whitewashed an autopsy into Kamala Harris's presidential defeat
3:48
Mr Martin has even been accused of anger management issues, as Mr Hogg referenced in his interview on left-leaning MS Now TV
3:57
It's now been 18 months. They had to put the building up as collateral and there are $2 million in debt
4:02
and then you juxtapose that with the progressive movement and what's going on out there
4:06
it's incredibly sad to see the DNC and the committee at this point
4:10
and it could not be more clear that he's unfit to lead. We need somebody who can actually raise money and also not throw his phone at staff
4:17
Now, this is not a tangential issue as the Democrats battle to retake control of Congress
4:22
It is a potential depth charge beneath those efforts. Federal Election Commission records show that the DNC
4:30
is $2 million in debt, while Donald Trump's Republicans have a war chest of $130 million to spend
4:37
with more coming in every day. So tight are the Democrats for cash
4:43
that the New York Times reported this week they have even asked suppliers to delay sending them any bills
4:50
until after the November midterms are over. Little wonder that top Democrats like Rahm Emanuel
4:56
the former mayor of Chicago, now considering a race for the presidency in 2028 are worried
5:02
Ken Martin should be building our apparatus for 2028. And is he or is he failing at it
5:07
In eight battleground states. Well, it's not, I mean, it's not happening at the level of the support that needs to happen
5:14
He spoke there to CNN. It's not just cold, hard cash that Democrats lack
5:18
It's also any kind of agreed, unified message. Behind the scenes, there is a scorched-earth internecine battle
5:27
taking place for control of the party, with centrists from the old guard pitted against young left-wing progressives
5:34
and vigorous disagreements about whether the party should be presenting itself as a socialist movement or not
5:41
People are hungry for a vision of the Democratic Party that has more to do with the New Deal than with the raw deal
5:49
that so many Americans have been forced to accept over these last few years. That's Mayor Zoran Mamdani of New York City
5:55
He said this week that he is willing to be the poster child for socialism in America
6:00
Few doubt that he has national political ambitions as he fuses a left-wing socialist economic agenda
6:07
with vigorous criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu's government at a time when public support for Israel is waning across America
6:16
He believes democratic socialists are staking out positions that working class voters are craving I think that these have the potential to connect with any working person that struggling anywhere
6:28
And I think for those who are concerned about what is this party, my answer would be that, you know, what is the Democratic Party if not its voters
6:36
But panicked centrists fear the Democratic Socialists are leading the party to disaster
6:41
And for the party's grandees, a nightmare scenario played out this week on Fox News
6:47
Anchor Martha McCullum was interviewing Megan Romer, the co-chair of the Democratic Socialists of America
6:54
and gave her this lightning round quiz. We will be seeing it again and again in Republican attack ads for weeks to come
7:03
So we're going to put up on the screen a few of the things that are part of your platform. And I want to ask you, just give me sort of a true or false on these
7:09
abolish the Senate. True. Okay. Replace the presidency and Supreme Court as we now know them
7:18
Yep. Abolish ICE. Absolutely. Abolish borders and give amnesty to anyone currently in the U.S
7:26
illegally. As a long-term plan. Yep. Defund the Pentagon. Absolutely. Abolish prisons
7:36
at least in large part? Yeah, again, as part of a long-term program, yeah
7:42
Okay, so no prisons. Government or public ownership of most large corporations
7:48
Yeah, absolutely. Every single Democrat running for office can now expect to be asked whether
7:53
they agree with those positions or not. And at the White House, President Trump was like the cat
8:00
who stole the cream. It's not socialism, it's really communism. They use the word social
8:05
Democrat because it sounds so nice, but it's really communism you're talking about. I think
8:10
it's the biggest threat to our nation. There is maybe since our founding that includes World War
8:17
One, World War Two, September 11th. It includes the Pearl Harbor attack. I think this is the biggest
8:26
threat to our nation. People will smile when I say that, but the smart people are going to say
8:31
you know he's probably right. It's basically introducing communism into the United States of
8:37
America. There's never been anything so dangerous. That's quite a claim coming from a man who has
8:41
already tried to subvert the outcome of one presidential election and has made it clear
8:46
that he will only accept the results of November's midterms if the Republicans win them. But we are
8:52
where we find ourselves and this week on Capitol Hill, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the public health official
8:57
who led the nation's response to the COVID-19 pandemic found himself in no man's land
9:04
Given Senator Paul's obvious obsession with calling for my prosecution, the only conclusion I can reach
9:13
is that the sole reason he is calling me before this committee
9:18
is to get me to say something, anything that could vindicate his repeated public pledges
9:27
that I end up in his words quote behind bars unquote In some of the most shameful scenes Congress has witnessed since the McCarthy Communist witch hunt of the 1950s
9:40
Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky dragged the now-retired Dr. Fauci before a Senate committee
9:46
in an effort to prove that America's most prominent public health official for decades
9:51
orchestrated a massive cover-up of the origins of COVID-19 and should now be prosecuted and jailed
9:59
claims Dr Fauci and his many supporters deny. To avoid what he believed was a Republican trap on Wednesday
10:07
he invoked the Fifth Amendment against self-incrimination, which led to this ludicrous theatre
10:13
at the hands of Republican Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri. What day of the week is it today
10:22
On the advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights
10:27
under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. What colour tie are you wearing? On the advice of counsel
10:34
I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution
10:39
What colour's the carpet in front of you? On the advice of counsel
10:46
I respectfully decline to answer based upon my rights under the Fifth Amendment
10:50
On and on it went. At one point, Dr. Fauci's lawyer, sitting alongside him, was ordered out of the room and led away by Capitol Hill police
11:00
One pithy verdict on what we had all witnessed came from an unusual source
11:04
Watching Rand Paul order security to throw Anthony Fauci's lawyer out of that hearing
11:11
was unbelievable to me. We are in a dark period of America
11:17
Harvey Levin, the founder of celebrity news website TMZ, which now operates a very busy Washington bureau that relishes the ludicrous exploits in a once serious city
11:31
We are in Senator Joseph McCarthy territory. And the idea that you have to watch this man take the Fifth Amendment
11:40
and again, I will say that I disagreed personally with some of the CDC decisions
11:47
Absolutely, I did. That said, he's a public servant who worked for us and saved lives for decades
11:56
And we are turning him into what Rand Paul wants to be, a criminal
12:02
Hard to argue with a word of that. Last week, I told you to follow the money
12:06
Today, the Wall Street Journal has an explosive front page report on the extent to which Trump is demanding money from captains of industry, tech and finance
12:16
$10 million here, $50 million there. The newspaper reports that corporate executives refer to the payments as
12:23
the Trump transaction tax. You pay them if you want to get anything done
12:28
We're replacing the free market with the market for Trump's affections, says one Wall Street yst
12:35
And you would think that alone would get Democrats to sort themselves out
12:40
and not muck it up again in November
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