President Trump is governing like a man who will never face voters again, mortgaging his party's future on promises he won't be around to keep.
Why it matters: Trump's approval has plunged to a second-term low. His signature bets — tariffs, the war in Iran, redistricting — are curdling into long-term liabilities the GOP could carry long past November.
Stunning stat: Fox News' latest poll shows Democrats leading Republicans by 4 percentage points on the economy — the first time the GOP has trailed on its strongest issue since 2010.
Zoom in: Virginia is ground zero for two Trump gambles gone wrong.
- Redistricting: Tuesday's referendum cleared the way for a new map that could flip Virginia's congressional delegation from a 6-5 Democratic advantage to 10-1 — wiping out Trump's five-seat gain from the Texas gerrymander he engineered last summer, which ignited a nationwide redistricting arms race.
- DOGE: A year after Elon Musk took a chainsaw to the federal government, roughly 300,000 fired workers remain the cost-cutting initiative's most visible legacy. Many of them are concentrated in Virginia, where Democrats won a trifecta in November that enabled Tuesday's redistricting vote.
The other side: "After dumping tens of millions into a gerrymandering scheme, Democrats still barely scraped by with a three-point margin in a state Abigail Spanberger won by 15," RNC spokesperson Kiersten Pels said in a statement.
- "Republicans are united behind a strategy to deliver a historic midterm victory."
Zoom out: The war in Iran has done deep, potentially long-lasting damage to the Republican Party.
- Tucker Carlson — who issued an extraordinary apology this week for his yearslong Trump advocacy — is no threat to vote blue, nor are former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Alex Jones or other newfound MAGA dissidents. But the anti-war realignment they represent — the young voters, the Joe Rogan listeners, the "no forever wars" coalition that delivered Trump his 2024 win — is in tatters.
- As gas prices surge to more than $4 a gallon, Trump said Thursday that Americans should expect to pay more "for a little while" in exchange for a nuclear-free Iran. A new Reuters/Ipsos poll found 78% of voters say gas prices are a "very big concern" for them; 77% blame Trump.
Between the lines: Trump's economic standing was already collapsing before the Iran war, with voters souring on his tariff agenda amid a broader affordability crisis.
- Trump sold his "Liberation Day" tariffs as a cure-all industrial strategy that would help reshore American manufacturing, secure favorable trade deals and flood the Treasury with new revenue.
- But Trump's maximalist use of emergency powers led the Supreme Court to strike down his tariffs, gutting his leverage and forcing the U.S. to begin the process of refunding more than $166 billion in illegal duties.
- Trump lashed out at the Supreme Court on Friday, arguing that one more "half sentence" barring refunds could have saved the government hundreds of billions of dollars.
What they're saying: "President Trump's initiative to right-size the federal government has saved taxpayers billions and successfully reduced federal employment to its lowest level since the 1960s, while the President's tariffs policies have dramatically reduced America's goods trade deficit, spurred trillions in new manufacturing investments, and secured over 20 trade deals with some of our largest trading partners," White House spokesperson Kush Desai said in a statement.
- "As the President's diplomatic team continues to engage with the Iranian regime, the American people can count on President Trump once again being proven right all along."
The bottom line: For Republicans, the risk of Trump's short-sighted bets extends far beyond the midterms.
- Vice President Vance, the frontrunner to succeed Trump as the next GOP nominee, has the worst approval rating of any VP at this point in their term, according to CNN's Harry Enten.
- Trump has shattered dozens of norms and precedents through 15 months in power, forging an imperial presidency that Democrats will inherit — and potentially weaponize — the next time they take office.
