On Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone discusses Trump's growing unpopularity among right-wing radio callers
Published
Citation
From the May 1, 2026, edition of MS NOW's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): I think the inverse is also starting to happen, right? Like, people who've covered Donald Trump's assault on the rule of law and his effort to politicize the military day in and day out for ten years, kind of missed how unpopular the brand became with large swaths of the country. I mean, Trump has been underwater with independents for almost a year. Trump has been underwater on immigration, economy, inflation, tariffs for almost a year. Trump is now more underwater on foreign policy than at any point in ten years. Trump, I think, is sort of nearing, you know, Bush 43 numbers on approval. He left office at 32%. Two serious polls have him at 33%. This is the third. The country has sort of logged back in, taken the measure of the second term, and said, thank you, no.
ANGELO CARUSONE (MEDIA MATTERS PRESIDENT): Yeah, and I want to actually put an exclamation point on that and also acknowledge something that you were saying a year ago. Because it was a year ago when the vibes were, you know, when Trump had narrative dominance completely, when the rest of the right-wing echo chamber was behind him, so they were spinning his stories. And for a large part of the country, despite the fact that the policies were unpopular, the vibes were great because they were Trump supporters, and at that point revenge was a priority, and they just loved it. They loved how much he was owning the libs and how much he was making the media mad, and the vibes were great for them, and it felt like he was unstoppable.
But the thing that you were pointing out then, was that eventually, reality is going to have to set in. These people are going to have to drive to work. They're going to have to go to the store. And the policies are so fundamentally disconnected from their lives that even if they have fidelity for Trump or loyalty to Trump, that they're going to have to marry that with the reality of their lives. And what you're seeing right now is sort of playing out in those polls is that a large part of these people, of his current supporters, they're no longer willing to ignore the things that are sort of cutting against them because their because their vibes aren't great anymore and the costs have gotten so high.
I mean, you know, I was listening to the beginning of the segment when you're playing all those people from the Bulwark, and I'll tell you that sounds a lot like right-wing talk radio right now, the callers. I mean, it's not that disconnected. They're -- you know, they may not be as sharp. They don't let on some of those people that are directly connected to Trump, although it gets through, but they are griping about the same thing. Because when the Iran war started, the gas prices were under $3, and now they're more than $4.
And to your point, you know, independents were already there. A large part of the country that are, you know, are considered double haters, people that don't like both parties or pox on both houses, you know, Republicans are losing them by more than 30 points right now. That trend started last summer. That didn't just start because of the Iran war like we're seeing with Trump supporters. That trend amongst those movable, more dynamic parts of the voter base, that started a year ago. And, so, the seeds were already sown, and that's the reality that we're living in now. It's a different context.
And to put sort of a fine point on all of it, a bow on all of it, in many ways, Trump has been extraordinary. He's defied the laws of gravity. He's defied in the opposite direction too. As you noted with, you know, President Bush, it was eight years before he got to that number. With Carter, it was a whole term. With Trump, it's 15 months. I mean, that is the opposite end of this. The reaction is being just as fierce and just as strong.