Epstein, Musk, Putin, Rising Inflation, Ongoing Tariff Fiasco - The World Just Isn't Bending The Knee To Trump
Hopium Paid Subscribers Gather Tonight at 7pm ET, DNC Chair Ken Martin Joins Us Tomorrow At 215pm
Morning all. I wake today having those two thoughts in my head at the same time that we often talk about here 1) Trump and his corrupt enablers at the Supreme Court keep breaking things that will be difficult if not impossible to repair and we must continue to act with great urgency 2) The “Trump as revered strongman” project is struggling way more than they anticipated, and the American people, leaders around the world and reality itself are just not bending the knee as he - delusionally, pathetically, illiberally - expected.
So there is a weakness, a struggle, a nagging sense that this thing ain’t working at the core of Trumpism right now that we need to continue to exploit.
I spend a lot of time trying to game out what happens with Trumpism through the end of this year. And it is hard to see where it goes. The public has rejected his immigration escalation, and as I wrote to you yesterday it is on its face a ridiculous and unsustainable project. Despite his bluster the economy isn’t roaring as they imagined, and the public is really unhappy with rising prices and his betrayal of his core campaign promise to make things better. His reckless gutting of the US government helped create the tragedy in Texas last week. No one bought whatever the f—k the Iran bombing was. He has not brought peace to Gaza, the Middle East, Ukraine. His trade policy - 90 deals in 90 days - is already one of the great policy fiascos in American history. In what has become an enormous problem for Trump Elon keeps attacking and undermining him in ways that is being seen and felt in MAGA world. They keep losing in the lower courts, daily, consequentially. The big, ugly bill is historically unpopular, is already doing material harm to the country and Republicans are already trying to find ways to undo parts of it to lessen the political fallout.
And then came Epstein, and Trump now looks and sounds unsteady, weak and just incredibly full of shit; and it risks bringing back what is without question the ugliest part of Trump - his decades of abuse of women, his infidelities, his sex with porn stars, his grabbing them by the …….All of it.
Watch this video clip from yesterday. It’s incoherent gibberish. Russia, Russia, Russia. The pressure is getting to him.
Later that afternoon while in Pennsylvania Trump went on one of the most incoherent and batshit crazy rants of all time:
Wired Magazine published an incredible story last night that the “raw” video footage of Jeffrey Epstein in his cell at the time of his death assembled by the Justice Department under Trump in his first term and released by the Justice Department in his second had 3 minutes edited out. Yes, Jeffrey Epstein was arrested, charged and died while Trump was President in 2019. From Wired (paywall, sorry):
Newly uncovered metadata reveals that nearly three minutes of footage were cut from what the US Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation described as “full raw” surveillance video from the only functioning camera near Jeffrey Epstein’s prison cell the night before he was found dead. The video was released last week as part of the Trump administration’s commitment to fully investigate Epstein’s 2019 death but instead has raised new questions about how the footage was edited and assembled.
WIRED previously reported that the video had been stitched together in Adobe Premiere Pro from two video files, contradicting the Justice Department’s claim that it was “raw” footage. Now, further analysis shows that one of the source clips was approximately 2 minutes and 53 seconds longer than the segment included in the final video, indicating that footage appears to have been trimmed before release. It’s unclear what, if anything, the minutes cut from the first clip showed.
Late yesterday Speaker Mike Johnson broke from Trump and called for the Epstein files to be released. Ruh-roh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
MAGA grinds on but “Trump” is struggling. In the daily Civiqs track Trump hit 55% disapproval for the first time this morning.
The Economist/YouGov weekly track of adults also had Trump hitting 55% disapproval this for the first time this week:
Last summer a 55% disapproval rate was considered to be so toxic for Joe Biden that he dropped out of the Presidential race.
There are more stories this morning that Republicans may try to unravel the ACA subsidy cuts that as we discussed with Charles Gaba last week take effect in a few months not in 2027. Incredibly, Senator Josh Hawley introduced a bill yesterday to roll back some of the Medicaid cuts with this incredible statement:
“Now is the time to prevent any future cuts to Medicaid from going into effect.”
Remember the official White House line is THAT THERE ARE NO CUTS TO MEDICAID.
And to top it all off if you thought Trump’s initial tariffs were bad and driving up costs and slowing the US and global economies, wait till you find out there last week, in a series of wild outbursts, Trump announced that most of these terrible tariffs will double or triple on August 1st. Yes, in two weeks the costs of just about everything we buy will skyrocket. Just because.
The DNC launched a new website this morning, TrumpTax.com. Let’s check it out, together. It begins:
Donald Trump promised he would lower costs on Day One. Instead, his first six months in office were spent pushing a budget bill into law that takes money out of working people’s pockets to give handouts to the rich.
The Trump Tax will cost the poorest 10% of households $1,600 a year while raising the income of the richest 10% of Americans by $12,000 a year. 17 million Americans are losing their health care coverage. More than 22 million working families could lose some of their food benefits. This law will affect all of us. The Trump Tax will explode the deficit by $3.3 trillion — leading to higher inflation, higher energy bills, and higher grocery and prescription drug costs. Experts warn that Trump has put us on a collision course with an economic crisis.
If you’re not a billionaire, you’re getting screwed over. Here’s how:
Friends, however we feel about Trump and MAGA, it is, in reality, a shambolic shitshow and we need to keep working as hard as we can in the days ahead. Remember:
Trump is weak, not strong. He is failing, not succeeding. He and America are losing, not winning. He is a villain, not a hero.
We have two events to discuss all in the next two days:
Tonight July 16th, 7pm ET - Our next Hopium Paid Subscriber Get Together. Register here.
Thu, July 17th, 215pm ET - DNC Chair Ken Martin joins Hopium live!. Click here to join. Excited for this one!
Now……
Let’s Get To Work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Support Hopium’s Priority Candidates - Our revised fundraising goals are for Labor Day, remarkably, only two months away, with the November elections now only four months away. Early voting in Virginia starts September 19th. We can do this people!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mikie Sherrill NJ Gov (2025) - $200,000 goal, $36k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch Our Interview
Abigail Spanberger VA Gov (2025) - $250,000 goal, $152k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer | Watch Our Interview
Jon Ossoff GA Senate (2026) - $200,000 goal, $35k raised - Donate | Learn More | Volunteer
Hopium House 7 (2026) - $250,000 goal, $161k raised - Donate | Learn More, Volunteer, Watch Our Interviews
As I mentioned I’m in the process of reworking our collective activities, and today have a new number 1….
1 - Call your Senators and Reps To Demand They Revoke Trump’s Terrible Tariffs - I will be fleshing this out in coming days but 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 - Get The Military Off Our Streets, Fight Trump’s Inhumane Immigration Escalation - Contact your Rep and Senators to demand they fight Trump’s illegal use of the National Guard and Marines in California. Encourage Democrats at all levels of government to a stand with Governor Newsom and the California - for Trump is not just attacking California, he is attacking the rights and freedoms of all of us. See my recent interviews with David Leopold Joe Garcia, Leon Krauze and Senator Chris Van Hollen for more.
In the coming days I want to work with all of you to do something more explicit about demanding the end of masked, plain clothes “police” snatching people here in America without warrants.
3 - Join Our Resolutions Project - 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. Our resolutions passed in two New Mexico counties two weeks ago, and we now have 50 resolutions moving in 18 states. Amazing stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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.
For more on the need to make partisan voter registration great again see my recent interview with Jane Kleeb, Nebraska Democratic Party Chair, DNC Vice Chair and President of the Association of Democratic State Committees.
Last Monday the DNC, the DSCC, the DCCC, the DGA and the ASDC announced a major new “Organizing Summer” project. Learn more about it here. I hope to have someone join us in the coming days to help us understand how we can support this exciting new initiative. Organizing to win these 29 Republican held House districts will be one of most important collective priorities for the next 16 months:
5 - Stand Up For Science - Sign on to the critically important Bethesda Declaration and watch my interview with Stand Up For Science’s Executive Director Colette Delawalla. Signing on to the Declaration is one concrete way you can take action today.
Another is to back over 700 employees of the EPA who have taken a courageous stand challenging EPA Administration Lee Zeldin. You can learn more and sign your name in support of this remarkable effort here. Note that over 140 of the signatories of this letter have now been put on Administrative leave. We to keep fighting everyone!
6 - Grow Hopium - 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.
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 surely is - Simon
Thanks for the updates, Simon.
I'm so old that I remember when a few missing minutes from an audio tape led to Nixon having to resign. Maybe we'll be treated to Pam Bondi trying to stretch from her desk to a computer with Adobe editing software on it. It's always the cover up that gets them.
I believe that one reason the Epstein issue is sticking with Trump's base is that a lot of them may have been becoming more and more disenchanted with some other aspects of his actions/failures. He hasn't brought peace to Ukraine on Day One. He's championed a law that will take away their ACA subsidies and Medicaid. He's jerking them around on tariffs as jobs get harder to find and costs go up. No matter what he says, gas isn't $1.98 at their pumps. But until now it's been apostasy to criticize him. Now, suddenly, it is OK to complain about him, or at least about his AG. I really think there's a huge opportunity for Dems to use this issue to reach a group of Trump voters.
I called Congressman Raskin to thank him for staying out in front of the Epstein issue. I thanked Senator Van Hollen for the same. I thanked Senator Alsobrooks for staying in front of the RFK issue. I'm writing postcards to Virginia voters today.
WHERE IS JOSH HAWLEY’s SPINE?
Senator Josh Hawley had every opportunity to find his spine and vote against Trump’s Big Ugly Bill. He failed to do so. And now he introduces a bill yesterday to roll back Medicaid cuts that he himself voted for??
This is performative and beyond pathetic!
The Big Ugly Bill isn’t just Trump’s. Democrats need a powerful information campaign to make American voters realize that *every" Republican senator and representative owns it!