Riggs Wins In NC, Tufts Student Ozturk Is Heading Back To New England, The Losses Keep Piling Up And The White House Keeps Sending In The Clown

Hopium Paid Subscribers Gather Tonight At 7pm ET

Morning all. Three things sticking out for me this morning:

• The circle of defiance continues to grow, and Trump and the Rs are looking weaker, defensive, full of struggle. The thrill and their swagger is gone.

• Trump’s public performances are growing more wild, incoherent, full of delusions, disturbing, clownish. Questions of his fitness must become part of the discourse now.

• The breakdown of our air traffic control system is shocking, and we need to make it a very big deal. It is going to further erode trust in Trump, Musk and this terrible Administration.

Look at the stories today - Ed Martin’s nomination for US Attorney in DC in trouble. JD Vance’s half brother gets 12% of the vote in a Cincinnati mayoral election (the incumbent mayor got 83%). Rs lose their most important Senate recruit in GA, may get stuck with MTG as the candidate. House Rs appear to be backing away from the biggest cuts to Medicaid, leaving them god knows where in their terrible reconciliation bill. There is clear worry among the Rs that Trump’s historic, in-your-face crypto corruption will sink their crypto bill. 15 House Rs sent a letter to Trump urging him to stop trashing the Social Security Administration. The Fed is not going to cut interest rates today as Trump has demanded. WTF Alcatraz????? Measles keeps spreading and our government appears OK with it. The Israeli software used by National Security Advisor Waltz (and perhaps others) was hacked, shut down and clearly exposed the most important national security conversations in our government to the entire world. His “pay more get less, pencils and dolls” riff is being ridiculed by all quarters. Where’s Elon? More tariffs here, more tariffs there!!!!!!!!!!!! As all great powers do, they are now - desperately, pathetically - sending migrants to Libya!!!!!!!

As I was going to press this morning we learned of two more meaningful Trumpian losses - Jefferson Griffin conceded in North Carolina, making Allison Riggs the official winner of that Supreme Court race (yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!); and the Tufts student snatched by masked plain clothes Interior Ministry agents, Ruymesa Ozturk, just won her appeal and appears headed from Louisiana to Vermont for an actual trial.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney did not bend the knee yesterday, no, not at all. Watch how he plays Trump here. It’s masterful:

This is the home page of the right-leaning The Hill right now:

In watching Trump over the past week he has looked far more clownish and crazy than any time I can remember. I think he knows his thing is failing and losing steam but has no idea what to do about it. So we are now getting a clown trying to entertain rather than a leader trying to govern, for governing my friends, as Trump learned during the COVID catastrophe, can be very, very hard.

Trump has the worst polling of any President in history at this point. His 100 days was declared a disaster by everyone. Let’s sit with this morning’s new Economist/YouGov Trump job approval weekly track for a moment.

• Overall 42%-52% (-10) - down 16 points from Trump’s first week

• 18-29 35%-56% (-21) - down 26 points

• Hisp 34%-61% (-27) - down 22 points

• Indies 33%-53% (-20) - down 17 points

• Makes < $50k - 40%-53% (-13) - down 17 points

• Makes 50-100K - 44%-52% (-8) - down 15 points

• Inflation/Prices is 35%-56% (-21) - OMG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I go deeper into Trump’s extraordinary decline with younger voters and the unraveling of the coalition that won him the election in my new talk with Rachel Janfaza. In our conversation yesterday Rob Shapiro does a great job explaining what an extraordinary disaster Trump’s economic policies are, policies that feel far more like sabotage than strategy. In our Monday conversation Rep. Tom Suozzi enthusiastically explains how ridiculous the emerging reconciliation bill is, and why we must do everything we can to defeat it.

I do think we are at a point with Trump where satire is going to become more and more important. For at its very essence what Trump is trying to do to the country is ridiculous. He is acting like a mad king, a tin pot dictator, or as Rob and I discussed in our talk he’s making the US both a kleptocracy and a Banana Republic. He just gets up every day and makes his diktats. Holds his insane Oval Office events. Pretends like the Constitution doesn’t exist, or that following it is somehow optional. He is pocketing billions of dollars and now selling access to the White House, directly, nakedly. He is having a military parade ON HIS BIRTHDAY. He keeps getting routed in court. Trump is a clown, a silly man, a painted man, a big blubbery baby man, an idiot, a fool, an old man clearly in decline and every day he is in office he is an insult to this great country and its wonderful people. Mocking him now relentlessly, aggressively, has become our obligation, our responsibility for it is on its face this Trump thing is so fucking ridiculous.

Now, let’s get to work…..

Hopium paid subscribers gather tonight at 7pm. Register here, and note that we are going to start adding our Hopium Live events to our Events page so you can always head there for a link to join. Our next Live event will be this Friday at 1pm ET with legal commentator and former MSNBC host Katie Phang.

I am in the process of refashioning our recommended actions and campaigns, but leave you with this sketch of where we are headed:

• 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.

Here’s an uplifting report from Hopium community member Annie B:

A bit of Hopium from over here:

A high school in a small town about an hour north of Minneapolis got hit with a book banning policy from their school board a few months ago, and some members of the community decided to fight back. A month ago, I went to speak at a school board meeting up there to support them. They'd organized a rally and news conference beforehand where they announced lawsuits from MN ACLU and the teacher's union.

Their activism inspired the author Dave Eggers to come out and host an event up there last night where parents, teachers, librarians, organizers, and students all spoke, and it was really striking to me how much organization they'd all done. There was one parent who had really taken it upon herself to be the face of the whole thing--a former Trump voter who'd become sickened by him-- and she'd partnered with a guy from Out Front Minnesota who'd helped with the community organization. And now, they have a template for fighting book bans that they are going to share with communities across Minnesota.

And, you guys, the students were incredible. The day of the school board meeting, they organized a walkout in the high school where they all sat outside the school and read books that had been removed from the shelves. They spoke at the press conference, the school board meeting, and the event last night, and they were so impassioned and eloquent and organized. They were fighters.

As we talk about getting young people involved, I want to say that these kids are out there. And the book banning movement has been truly horrific and devastating, but watching people--adults and kids--on the ground learn to organize and fight back, it truly gives me hope.

And strongly recommended these two campaigns to support today:

1 - 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 linesof the Trump/Musk assault on the federal government.

We’ve raised more than $89,000 so far towards our June 30th goal of $250,000 - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!

2 - 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. Learn more about this important effort here.

We’ve already raised over $71,000 towards our $200,000 June 30th goal - thank you all!

Keep working hard all. While they keep sending in the clowns, we keep sending in all of you - Simon