Forwarded this email? Subscribe here for more
GMT20250724-000022_Recording.cutfile.20250724133514564_1280x720.mp4
Watch now

Things Are Bad For Trump Now. They Are Likely To Get Worse (New Video And Analysis)

Katie Phang Joins Us Live Tomorrow at 215pm ET To Review This Consequential Week

READ IN APP

Morning all. There is a lot coming at us now and I’ll do my best to make sense of it all this am. I start off with a recording of my talk with Hopium paid subscribers last night (above) where I go through it all – Trump’s remarkable slide in the polls, the rebellion in the House, his tariff madness. We had a good crowd last night and a lively discussion after my initial remarks. Get to it when you can.

Six months and four days in it’s clear Trump is in trouble. This period of unraveling began with Elon’s three day long assault on Trump in early June that included this tweet:

As you’ve heard me say I think something broke inside the White House that week. Trump’s manhood, his STRENGTH, his POWER, was questioned by someone who could speak to the MAGA faithful, and this STRENGTH, this POWER needed to be restored at all costs. Within hours we saw the wild overreaction and escalation on the streets of Los Angeles, moves which quickly became rejected by the public. We saw his Dear Leader military parade flop, and become overshadowed by millions of us peacefully protesting across the country. We saw the country slough off his MANLY BOMBING of Iran, seeing it, immediately, for the pathetic stunt it was. His week of royal celebration of the passage of his BIG UGLY bill was then rudely interrupted by hundreds dying in Texas floods, Putin giving him the finger, Pam Bondi burying the Epstein report and him coming to his 90 day trade deadline with zero, none, zilch, nada trade agreements. A few days later the White House then had to admit that the President did have a debilitating disease, and was in ill-health – further confirmation of his weakness and declining POWER. All the while his poll numbers kept dropping, and all parts of his agenda – including the big ugly – continued to grow more unpopular.

In their royal arrogance, frustration and desperation in that victory lap week that turned to shit Trump made two deeply consequential mistakes – rather than rolling back his unpopular and destructive tariffs, he announced he was doubling and tripling them; they tried to bury the Epstein report.

The Epstein affair has become a titanic scandal that has reinforced Trump’s weakening grip on our politics and Washington. In the last few days we learned that 1,000 FBI personnel – 1,000 – were deployed to find mentions of Trump in the files suggesting the cover up in place was enormous in scale. The Wall Street Journal shared Trump’s disgusting letter to Epstein from 2003. Speaker Johnson had to send the House home this week to quell the growing rebellion in his ranks. Then yesterday we learned that Trump was in the Epstein files and had been lying about it to the public and his supporters. Last night the House oversight committee voted 8-2 to subpoena the Epstein files from Trump and Bondi. And then late last night a video surfaced of Epstein in 2010 taking the fifth when asked about whether he and Trump worked underage girls together:

You never know in this business. You never know when something like the Epstein affair will explode into something consequential. But it has, and this rapist, fraudster, traitor, and 34 times felon in unlikely to come out of it anything other than deeply, deeply damaged even if he can hold on to the Presidency.

The second major mistake Trump made during this challenging period was doubling down on his tariff debacle. As Rob Shapiro and I explored in yesterday’s discussion Trump’s reckless economic agenda – big ugly, mass deportation, tariffs, gutting of US scientific leadership – was doing enormous damage to the US economy and had become the central driver of his political decline. Look at this data:

Only 25% of the country believe the big ugly will be good for them:

Only 27% of the country believe Trump’s agenda has been good for them:

Only a third of the country – and ONLY HALF OF THOSE WHO VOTED FOR HIM – gave him good marks on inflation and prices the single most important issue in American politics, and one he promised to address as President:

Looking at all this, and given what forecasters were telling us about the negative impact of Trump’s agenda on the economy, Trump should have used his 90 day deadline to walk away from his tariffs. He choose, rather, to announce that he was doubling and tripling them on August 1st, next Friday. In the last two days we’ve learned that Trump appears to be attempting to create an universal 15% across the board global tariff, 50% higher than his current tariff rate, and far, far higher than what was a 1-2% global rate prior to his illegal and unconstitutional levying of his tariffs in early April.

So in his arrogance, diminishment, extremism, confusion, anger, frustration, weakness and emasculation our increasingly mad leader has chosen a course that will further harm the US economy; further raise prices and spur inflation; further anger our global allies; further shift the tax burden from the wealthy to the working and middle class; and push him further and further away from the American people who will rightly feel betrayed by these tariffs and his broader agenda.

When Congress returns in September not only will they be grappling with the Epstein affair, they will have to pass a fiscal year 2026 budget. Without a new budget the government runs out of money on October 1st. This dysfunctional, shambolic, cowardly, shitshow of a Congress will have to somehow come together keep the government from shutting down and pass a budget that funds the government for the next year. And that, my friends, is going to be a serious problem for them. For that budget will not only have all the deeply unpopular parts of the big ugly it will include exploding deficits, onerous tariffs, cuts to NIH, FEMA, Department of Education, etc too. It is going to be the BIG, BIG UGLY, and we should be able to use these months of wrangling and struggle to hang their agenda of sabotage, plunder and betrayal around their necks and further degrade their already degraded standing; and perhaps, perhaps, if all goes well, knock out or delay some of the worst parts of what is to come.

As bad as all that is, it is likely to get even worse for Trump and the Rs next year as their agenda, whatever of it survives the budget battle, is implemented and the economy worsens and they get more and all of us get less, far, far less.

To review and make sense of this extraordinary week Katie Phang will be joining us live tomorrow at 215pm ET. You can find the link to this event and all of our events in our Events page on the main Hopium site. Three more things to get to from me if you haven’t gotten to them yet:

Friends, Trump is in trouble. While yes they continue to do enormous harm to the country, “Trump” as a brand is failing; the wand no longer seems to work; his hold on power here is loosening – and all of that is good, essential, important. It is a necessary but not sufficient step in our work to mitigate the damage they are doing and win back power. Watch my video. Share it with others. We have a big opening now, and we need to seize it, together.

OK, my friends……

Let’s Get To Work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Here at Hopium we like to do. Here we are proud, plucky, patriots but we are also put your head down, grind it out, get shit done doers. Trump and Republicans have stumbled, and given us a big opportunity now to tell our story and win back power. While are there so many things people can do to advance our cause I am partial to two sets of activities – support our candidates and party committees, and call/contact your elected officials every day. So what follows is our recommendations to make your time and money are being put to the highest and best use in this critical election cycle……

Support Hopium’s Priority Candidates And Party Committees – Just set new fundraising goals for Labor Day, now remarkably six weeks away. Election Day is less than four months away and early voting starts in Virginia starts in less than two months – September 19th! Donate, volunteer, learn more about our candidates and opportunities here….

Our Recommended Actions – Here are other actions you can take outside of our direct electoral work:

1 – Call your Senators and Rep To Demand They Revoke Trump’s Terrible Tariffs – Congress simply must take back its tariff authority that Trump has illegally and unconstitutional seized and dangerously abused; and at the very least they must stop what will be Trump’s ruinous new tariff increases slated to start on August 1st. Trump’s economic plan has failed, and we need to find a better way forward.

2 – Fight Trump’s Inhumane Immigration Escalation – We must do more here, and I will be working to put together a strategy for us in the coming weeks. In the meantime watch my recent discussions with David Leopold Joe Garcia, Leon Krauze and Senator Chris Van Hollen for more.

3 – Bring “Resolutions Of Condemnation” To Your Community – Inspired by the tactics of our Founders learn about how Hopium members are advancing “Resolutions of Condemnation” in their communities across the country and consider bringing this initiative to your state, country or city/town. Remarkably, members of this community are now advancing 50 resolutions projects in 20 states. Can we get to all 50 by the fall election?

Our newly updated Resolutions page includes a new chat for folks to report in on their progress or seek counsel from those interested in launching a resolutions project in their community. This is one way to fight back against Trump’s unprecedened abandonment of our Constitutional order.

4 -Volunteer To Help Your State and/or Local Democratic Parties Stand Up Voter Registration Efforts And Support “Organizing Summer” – In the presentation he made to our community recently Tom Bonier made a persuasive case that Democrats must once again make partisan voter registration a national priority. State and local Democratic Parties are in the planning stages to take this on. Members of our community should consider contacting their state and local parties and offer to help stand up these vital efforts in the coming months.

The DNC, the DSCC, the DCCC, the DGA and the ASDC have announced a major new “Organizing Summer” project. Learn more about it here. For more on what the DNC and state and local parties are intending to do this election cycle see my recent interviews with DNC Chair Ken Martin and ASDC President Jane Kleeb.

5 – Support Brave US Government Staff and Scientists Fighting To Protect Our Global Scientific Leadership – Staff at 3 of the most important US science agencies – NIH, EPA and NASA – have now courageously filed letters of discontent against their leadership. Learn more and sign your name to support these remarkable initiatives, and do you part to fight to main America’s global scientific leadership!

For more watch my interviews with Colette Delawalla, Executive Director of the advocacy organization Stand Up For Science; and Dr. Michael Mann, a world leading climate scientist, and author of the forthcoming book, Science Under Siege.

6 – Review and Comment On Hopium’s Working Agenda – Many of you have noted that we must do more than oppose, we must also propose and make clear to the American people what they will get if they put us back in power. To that end, with input from many of you, I’ve drafted an initial 2026 Agenda. Check it out here, offer comments and improvements, take it into your communities and create discussions and debates about who we are, and what story we want to tell to our voters this fall and next year.

7 – Grow Hopium And This Wonderful Community Of Proud, Plucky, Patriots – We’ve set a goal of trying to grow the Hopium community from the 152,000 we are now to 175,000 by Labor Day. Do what you can to encourage your friends, family and colleagues to become a summer subscriber to Hopium, free or paid. If each current paid subscriber brings in just one new subscriber this summer we will hit our goal.

To encourage the growth of our community annual paid subscriptions are 10% off through Labor Day. Use that link to buy gift or group subscriptions, and join our new referral rewards program too.

Finally, please self-report your activities to our daily paid subscriber chat. These reports help inspire all of us to do more and fight harder! Been impressive to see how many of you remain involved in local, in person protests of all kinds in your communities. Keep it up!!!

Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you, and a fight it truly is – Simon