Two Weeks 'Til Midterms

Two weeks before the 2026 midterms, Dave Smith opens the show with a 1999 Pat Buchanan quote warning that expanding NATO onto Russia's front porch would "schedule a 21st century confrontation" and that offering membership to Ukraine was "rashness bordering on madness." The quote, Smith says, perfectly predicted the major confrontation of the century and the precise mechanism that produced it. This sets the stage for the episode's central argument: the Trump administration has broken its core campaign promises, pursued a war of choice in Iran, presided over persistent inflation, and is now so historically unpopular that its midterm pitch is collapsing in real time.

The Unpopularity Is Unprecedented

Smith walks through polling data from Reuters, Ipsos, NBC, ABC, and Pew showing Donald Trump's approval rating at historic lows for any president before a midterm election. The worst previous October approval rating belonged to Harry Truman at 30 points underwater; Trump's numbers exceed all of them. Among independents, he is 54 points underwater. Smith notes that the only historical comparisons are George W. Bush after the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina, and Truman after dropping the atomic bombs. "I've never seen a one-year to next-year, flesh presidential poll that stark of a difference," he says. "That is unlike any event in my lifetime."