Just hours after he put a U.S. Senate seat in the reliably red state of Texas back in play for Democrats by endorsing against four-term incumbent John Cornyn in a primary runoff — leading to a landslide victory for scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton — President Donald Trump delivered another a dagger to Republicans when he said, “I don’t care about the midterms” during a televised Cabinet meeting Wednesday.
Trump was in the midst of a meandering monologue at the top of his 12th cabinet meeting since retaking office when he expressed his total lack of interest in the November elections while boasting of supposed successes against Tehran in the war he started and claiming Iran’s hardline government is “very much intent” on striking an agreement to end the mutual blockade that has caused fuel prices to soar and his approval ratings to plummet.
“Their economy is in freefall, they have 250% inflation, their money has no value. Their whole economic system is broken down,” he said of Iran.
“They thought they were going to out-wait me … ‘He’s got the midterms,’” Trump mimicked Iranian leaders, before declaring: “I don’t care about the midterms.”
Trump then told reporters to “look at what happened last night,” citing Paxton’s victory in a bruising intra-party battle over who would take on Democratic challenger James Talarico, a state representative, in the general election.
“That was the prelude to the midterms,” Trump added.
The president’s dismissal of the upcoming elections comes as his approval rating has sunk to new lows amid the continuing conflict with Iran, which has driven gas prices through the roof across the country as the standoff with Tehran over the Strait of Hormuz has choked off global fuel supplies and left energy markets reeling and inflation spiking.
Last week, the polling aggregator RealClearPolitics reported that Trump’s disapproval rating average had spiked to 58.3 percent — higher than the 57.9 percent level it had hit in the days following the riot Trump had fomented at the U.S. Capitol in a last-ditch attempt to avoid leaving office after losing the 2020 election to Joe Biden.
It cited polls from a range of outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Fox News and the Daily Mail as well as Reuters/Ipsos, CBS News, and The New York Times.
A Fox News survey released last week showed Trump’s overall approval rating falling to 39 percent with 61 percent disapproving, including 41 percent who say they “strongly” disapprove.
That’s a three-point drop since last month, a full ten points lower than the start of his second term, and a single percentage point above the lowest rating of his first term in October 2017.
The three-point slide was powered by drops in his overall approval among key demographic groups, with rural white voters’ approval dropping by six points, that 3 percent drop among Republicans and a five-point slide from white men without college degrees, a voting bloc that has always been one of his strongest bases of support.
A whopping 91 percent blame Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran for the high gas prices, and his Republican Party allies in Congress are also bearing the brunt of voters’ anger.
Polling analyst Nate Silver’s Silver Bulletin reported on Wednesday that Democrats currently hold a 6.9 percent average lead in polling on which party voters would prefer to be in charge of Congress next year.
The precipitous drop in the president’s standing with Americans has not gone unnoticed by his Republican allies in the upper chamber, many of whom took umbrage at Trump’s decision to endorse Paxton, who has long been dogged by multiple scandals and criminal investigations, over their longtime colleague, who was expected to have a far easier path to defeat the upstart Democrat running for the seat.
Senate Republicans revolted last week in the immediate wake of Trump’s endorsement by rejecting his demand for up to $1 billion for his controversial White House ballroom project and panning his plan to create a $1.8 billion fund to pay off allies who were subjected to criminal charges or investigations over the last ten years.
Even a desperate, last-minute visit on Thursday from Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche to drum up support for the slush fund failed to bring GOP senators back into line, and Cornyn’s defeat at the hands of Trump’s ally Paxton may not leave him in the mood to assist the president with any of his legislative priorities going forward.
And with the clock continuing to count down until the day voters decide whether to give Democrats back control of both the House and Senate, Trump appears uninterested in taking any steps to solve the cost-of-living issues he exacerbated with the war despite having campaigned on a promise to bring prices down after voters punished Democrats for post-Covid inflation spikes.
He blew off such economic concerns when speaking to reporters just before his trip to China earlier this month when asked whether he was factoring in his promise to ease Americans’ financial woes during talks to end the war.
“I don’t think about American’s financial situation — I don’t think about anybody,” he said.
But those talks were thrown into chaos again on Wednesday after the White House dismissed Iran’s latest terms and rejected reports of a draft peace deal as a “complete fabrication,” even as Trump claimed Iran remains keen on striking a deal while insisting that Tehran would not get sanctions relief for giving up highly-enriched uranium — a sticking point in negotiations.
“Iran want very much to make a deal. So far they haven’t gotten there… We’re not satisfied with it, but we will be. We will be either that or we’ll have to just finish the job,” he said.
Earlier in the day, the White House dismissed an Iranian state television report about a purported draft memorandum of understanding on potential peace deal terms as “not true” and suggested that both sides remain far from closing an agreement.
The report claimed the memorandum stated that Tehran would restore shipping through the Strait of Hormuz to pre-war levels within a month while American withdraw forces would from Iran’s vicinity and end a naval blockade of Iranian shipping.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Olivia Wales later added that negotiations with Iran were nonetheless proceeding nicely and reiterated Trump has made his red lines clear regarding Iran’s nuclear program.
