After His Failed First 100 Days, Trump Is Caving, Capitulating, And Course Correcting

Trump continues to light the global credibility of the United States on fire

Morning all. A lot is coming at us today. There is a through line to it all - this early Trump thing failed, and they are desperately and furiously now trying to salvage their rancid project.

Trump caved on his China tariffs. Just caved. They are walking back the worst of the Medicaid cuts. Trump is throwing out his huge (and insane) prescription drug plan this morning. They cut and ran from their failed Houthi play last week. They took credit for a cease fire that India said they did not broker. They dropped two high profile nominees and shoved out their National Security Advisor. They keep getting thwarted and routed in court and like petulant children are lashing out and saying and doing crazy stuff.

But as they attempt to put lipstick on this terrible pig of a Presidency the ugliness is still there. The 10% across the board tariffs and 30% tariffs on Chinese goods are still there, and they are slowing the economy, disrupting our supply chains, raising prices on everything for everybody in the US and making America look idiotic and feckless to the people of the world. The Medicaid plan emerging from the House will despite new tricks and artifice end up cutting health care and raising costs for tens of millions and weakening the overall health care system. It does all this while giving billionaires huge tax cuts and exploding the deficit; while Trump and Musk continue to do their illegal smash and grab on our government and publicly owned resources; while Trump continues his unprecedented and barbaric assault on our public health; while he continues to shovel billions - illegally - into his pockets and sell access to the White House; and while he continues to traitorously bend the knee to Putin when it really matters.

This pattern now of him walking back failed policies through “deals” and taking credit for “wins” that are anything but has taken his madness and carnival barker bullshit leadership style global - and it’s doing enormous harm to the credibility of the United States. To the world Trump looks weak, idiotic, craven, desperate and easy to manipulate. For he is.

I have argued here that the pace of these announcements and “deals” have felt more manic in recent weeks, and are also thinner, less substantive and more full of Trumpian bullshit; as if they keep rushing half-baked things out the door, anything, anything to change the narrative from his many manifest failures, losses and rejections. There is in my view a deep desperation now in Trumpworld. They know their thing is not working as planned, and they must quickly restore his standing and power in Washington before it cements and is impossible to do so. Note this analysis from a Politico Playbook article from Saturday, the week the 2026 midterms began:

THE LANDSCAPE: Republicans’ prospects next November are top of mind for Trump, who posted on Truth Social a number of endorsements yesterday. That’s not to mention his contention that a “TINY” tax hike for the “rich” could cost his party, posting, “Republicans should probably not do it, but I’m OK if they do!!!”

CAMPAIGNER-IN-CHIEF: All of that is the mood music playing beneath our colleague Rachael Bade’s newsy column this morning looking at how Trump’s “midterm obsession is also hovering over Capitol Hill as GOP lawmakers try to write his sprawling domestic policy agenda into law.”

“On issue after issue, Trump appears to sympathize with swing-district moderates — the ‘majority makers’ whose races will decide the majority,” Rachael writes. “Trump and his aides have pushed back on steep cuts to Medicaid in part because the politics stink. They’ve given a wide berth to blue-state Republicans who are pushing to raise the cap on the deduction for state and local taxes — a policy Trump signed in 2017 that helped sink him in suburban districts a year later.”

Part of it, Rachael notes, is Trump’s “love of the game.” But for a president who has weathered all manner of investigations and two impeachments, there’s something more realpolitik: He is “deeply motivated by his desire to avoid suffering through dozens of new investigations and a third potential impeachment,” she writes.

ON OFFENSE: As one Trump adviser put it, Trump is finally playing the long game.

“We think we can have four years,” this person told Rachael, capturing the attitude inside Trump’s political shop. “We reject the defeatist attitude of operating from the perspective that this is our only shot and we only got two years.”

A few thoughts on what this all means. First, our work together is making a difference. Public opinion matters, and they are course correcting, trying to soften the edges of their venal regime. They are responding to public pressure. So we need to keep the pressure on.

Second, the course correction is largely on the surface, and all the ugliness of their project remains. $400m planes for him and 5 pencils, 2 dolls and a broken air traffic control system for all us. Big tax cuts for him, higher prices and worse health care for all of us. While he gets more, lots more, we get to pay more and get less. Yesterday, Trump once again undermined our European and Ukrainian allies, and once again cravenly sold out America and the West to Putin:

Here’s the NYT on the new Medicaid proposal coming out of the House (gift link):

House Republicans released a plan late on Sunday that would cause millions of poor Americans to lose Medicaid health coverage and millions more to pay higher fees when they go to the doctor, but that stopped short of an overhaul that would make the deepest cuts to the program.

……..

“In no uncertain terms, millions of Americans will lose their health care coverage, hospitals will close, seniors will not be able to access the care they need, and premiums will rise for millions of people if this bill passes,” Representative Frank Pallone of New Jersey, the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee, said in a statement.

Yes, the Trumpian shitshow just keeps stumbling forward:

Third, they have told us what they fear most - us gaining back control of Congress. They have also told us they are going to fight like hell to prevent that from happening.

Now, my friends, since our work is making a difference let’s get back to it:

Getting Smarter, Meeting Important Leaders - we’ve produced a lot of great events in recent weeks which you can find on the Hopium site under Podcast and on YouTube and Spotify too. If you haven’t caught it yet be sure to watch my interview with David Jolly about our the opportunity we have may next year to put Florida back in play. Check out these interviews to muscle up, get inspired.

Talking to Electeds, Rallies and Protests, Info Warring - I’m in the process of reworking our “actions” that we take together, and want to focus on these three in the coming weeks and perhaps a few more:

• We link his terrible tariffs with his even more terrible reconciliation bill, and work to undermine both of them, together.

• We keep fighting to get Dems to more aggressively open up that Second Front, pen a Letter to America, introduce and debate state and local “articles of condemnation” and commit to owning July 4th this year. We have to firmly cement our identity as patriots and theirs as betrayers.

• We develop and lean in hard to a big comprehensive argument against their multi-pronged and barbaric assault on our health, our public health system, science, research and academic freedom. I am calling this our Third Front.

Keep self-reporting all. So much going on across the country - thank you!!!!

Help Abigail Spanberger Win Virginia - Virginia will be one of the big battlegrounds of the November, 2025 elections and we have a great candidate for Governor, Abigail Spanberger. Watch my interview with Abigail, donate, volunteer, and learn more here. Given how many federal employees live in Virginia, this race is also now on the front lines of the Trump/Musk assault on the federal government.

We’ve raised more than $92,000 so far towards our June 30th goal of $250,000 - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!

Support The Hopium House 7 - We’ve begun our work to help flip the House next year by supporting and shoring up the 7 newly-elected battleground House Dems we helped elect last year. Catch our interviews with Reps Derek Tran, Janelle Bynum and Tom Suozzi and give to all 7 through a single donation on our new ActBlue page.

We’ve already raised over $74,000 towards our $200,000 June 30th goal - thank you all!

Growing and Supporting Hopium - while Trump is increasing costs (pay more, get less!!!!) for you and your family, Hopium is lowering them - an annual paid subscription here is now 10% off through the end of May.

Finally, my wife and I did one of our periodic hikes of the National Mall yesterday. I will be sharing some photos from our visit there in the coming weeks. Here’s one of my favs from the FDR Memorial. FDR’s words still speak to us across these many generations:

Keep working hard all. Incredibly proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon