Morning all. Some breaking news and headlines from our new American madness this morning:
Putin rejects US-Ukrainian ceasefire - another stumble, another humiliation for our fuck-up in chief
Our mad leader throws morning tantrum, threatens mega 200 tariff on EU wines and spirits
Trump aid freeze decimates UN food agency: “it’s catastrophic” - yes, our mad leader seems content in becoming a mass murderer
Brother of GSA leader tried to buy prime federal property - Olympian levels of corruption taking places in Washington right now
The Khalil case is a threat to First Amendment rights - terrific editorial from the Washington Post on Trump beginning to disapear people he doesn’t like
New graph showing how European stocks are far outpacing American stocks under Trump, via Carl Quintanilla:
Raising Our Game, Going On Offense Now - Last night at the end of a beautiful, warm, early spring day in Washington, I spoke to Hopium paid subscribers about our challenging political moment. As you would expect given the events of the week it was a large and lively crowd. You can find a recording of our get together last night above. I opened it up with 25 minutes of an overview of our current moment, and then took questions for another 35 or so. For those who would rather read than watch or listen you can find the rough Substack- generated transcript above.
In my talk I review the themes and actions we’ve been discussing here of late - Trump has stumbled, people are losing faith in his leadership and he is far weaker now; we need to keep raising our game, get louder, go 24/7/365, take it do him now far more aggressively; it’s time for Democrats to open up a Second Front, and put Trump’s unprecedented assault on our government and Constitutional and rules-based orders in front of the American people now; how Trump through his idiocy, extremism and fealty to Putin has begun to, dangerously, lower America’s guard; and we discuss the more complex than it appears at first blush politics of the decision Republicans have made to shut down the government this weekend and direct attention away from Trump’s ongoing struggles, including his tanking of the US economy.
Most importantly, in this video I thank all of you for your grit, your fight, your willingness to leave it all out there on the playing field for our democracy, our freedom, our families and our future. Our work together is making a difference, and we just need to keep our heads down and keep working as hard as we can.
Enjoy, share with others you think might be interested and thank you for all that you are doing for your country in this time of enormous challenge.
Leaders Jeffries On The CR, Via Morning Joe This Morning:
The best path forward, as has been articulated by Leader Schumer, Democrats in the Senate and Democrats in the House, is to move a four-week spending bill that would freeze spending and allow for negotiations to continue in a bipartisan way so we can reach an agreement that actually meets the needs of the American people in terms of their health, their safety, their economic well-being and America's national security. That's the best path forward. That's the responsible way forward. And it's unfortunate that House Republicans irresponsibly are trying to jam a far-right, extreme bill down the throat to the American people. And then they got out of town. We should all be in Washington prepared to vote on a bipartisan agreement that allows negotiations to continue.
Stay tuned…..
More Bad Polling For Trump - Yesterday we reviewed a new CNN poll which was the worst public poll Trump has seen so far in his Presidency. Today I want to drill down a bit on some new numbers from the weekly, high quality Economist/YouGov poll released yesterday.
Let’s track some data from their first poll with Trump as President in January to this new one from yesterday, looking at three groups critical to his narrow win:
Trump Job Approval
Overall 49-43 to 47-47 - 6 pt swing against Trump
Hispanics 42-47 to 34-56 - 17 pt swing against Trump
18-29 year olds 48-43 to 43-45 - 7 pt swing against Trump
Independents 41-45 to 41-46 - 1 pt swing againt Trump
Trump Job Approval For Jobs and The Economy
Overall 49-37 to 43-47 - 16 pt swing against Trump
Hispanics 41-36 to 32-58 - 31 pt swing against Trump
18-29 year olds 51-33 to 40-45 - 23 pt swing against Trump
Independents 43-35 to 38-49 - 17 pt swing against Trump
Ruh-roh Donald! I cannot stress enough how bad this data is. In this and other polling in recent days its clear now that Trump’s most important attribute - that with him you can make more money, have a better life - is completely gone now.
In this poll his important gains with Hispanic voters also appear to be in the process of disappearing, not surprisingly, given his incredible assault on immigrants of all kinds, not just “criminal aliens” and how central his “politics of opportunity” was to bringing Hispanics and young people along for him in 2024. We will see if this erosion in his new coalition is replicated in other high quality polls in the coming days
I think that recent Economist image tells it best - Trump is lighting the American economy, and his political standing, on fire right now, on purpose, in his madness and epic idiocy.
The House Dem Ad Campaign - The leading House Dem SuperPAC, the House Majority PAC, launched an ad campaign last week in 23 of the most vulnerable Republican-held House districts. So far they’ve released their ads in 20 of these districts, which you can find below. If you are in one of these states or districts please circulate the ad(s) through your networks and encourage folks to amplify them. I will expanding our current campaign to engage the Rs in the 17 most vulnerable districts to the 23 now being targeted by the House Dems. Here are the ads we have so far.
AK-AL, AZ-01, AZ-06, CA-03, CA-22, CA-40, CA-41, CO-08, IA-01, IA-03, MI-07, NY-17, NJ-07, PA-07, PA-08, PA-10, TX-15, VA-01, WI-01, WI-03
Here’s the basic script, from the ad in CO-08:
Gabe Evans was sent to Washington to cut costs.
“Instead, Evans just cast the deciding vote to set up cuts threatening health care for nearly 80 million Americans.
“To cut another big check to billionaires.
“Cutting Medicaid and making health care more expensive.
“So billionaires can pay less.
“Threatening health care for 37 million kids and kicking seniors out of nursing homes.
“Just to make billionaires like Elon Musk even richer.
“It’s time to send Gabe Evans a message: stand up for us, not billionaires.”
Great to see the House Dems taking it to these guys so aggressively. Enjoy, and spread these as far and wide as you can.
Love this Getty Images photo from London: "Tesla The Swasticar. Now With White Power Steering.” As I publish this morning Tesla is down 3% today and 50% since Mid-December. A shame. Terrible shame.
Let’s Now Do More, And Perhaps, Maybe, Worry A Little Less - While we have made many recommendations to Democrats in recent months for how to raise our game and fight harder and smarter, let’s focus on our current four recommended sets of actions for how we can best channel our love of country into concrete action today:
1 - Fight The Trump/Musk Attack On Our Government And Our Privacy, End This Historic Crime Spree - Encourage your Senators and Representatives to let Facts be be submitted to a candid world in what I’m calling a joint Senate/House “Letter to America;” to hold their own hearings; to file criminal referrals for Musk and his malicious posse to DOJ/FBI and amicus briefs in the court cases regarding the usurpation of their Constitutional authorities or file suits of their own (House Dems began doing this two weeks ago). Encourage them to hold a daily morning press conference to more aggressively challenge Musk’s ransacking of the USG that is making America less prosperous, less healthy, less safe and far less respected in the world.
2 - Protest, Loudly, Trump’s Embrace of Russia and Abandonment of Europe - Let your electeds know you are outraged by traitorous Trump’s selling out of Zelenskyy, abandonment of Europe and embrace of Putin; and that we cannot accept this level of appeasement of someone who is a clear enemy of America and the West, and certainly not an ally. Demand that Trump not let his Saudi meeting w/Putin become our Munich; demand that he not become our Neville Chamberlain; demand that we rejoin our European allies in support of Zelenskyy and democracy here and everywhere. The country is not with Trump’s embrace of Putin and we must be very loud, very, very loud now. See my new essay on the need to support our allies and not surrender to Putin.
3 - Organize Against The 17 Most Vulnerable Republican House Members - For those of you who live in AZ, CA, CO, IA, MI, NE, NJ, NY, PA, VA, WI please start talking to your local orgs - state and local Democratic parties, grassroots groups, traditional Dem allies - about mounting a campaign targeting the most vulnerable 17 Republican House Members to urge them to vote against whatever joint House-Senate reconciliation bill emerges in the coming weeks. We launched this new effort a few weeks ago and while we should be urging all our Senators and Reps to vote against these emerging plans, those of you can work these 17 House Rs have a special role to play in this next phase of the battle over the budget. As we’ve discussed there is a lot of concern in the Republican House about the size of the Medicaid cuts required in the House outline passed last Tuesday and we need to keep working it people! (will be updated this in coming days).
4 - Keep Calling Attorneys General In The States - Ask them to protect you and your data, tax returns and privacy, and to keep federally mandated monies flowing to your states and communities. For those in the 19 states that brought the successful Treasury suit thank them and encourage them to keep going. I still believe these 19 states should make criminal referrals of Musk/his posse to DOJ/FBI and raise the stakes.
Paid subscribers should self-report their actions today in our daily chat. So inspired by how hard so many of you are working. I want to make a special plea to all Hopium readers in states with Republican Senators - please make your calls, every day. Even 50 to 100 people calling every day in every red state can make a difference. We have hundreds of Hopium subscribers in every state in the country and it’s critical that we all do our part now.
Next, for those wanting to do more traditional political/campaign work we have four Hopium-backed efforts we're rallying behind right now:
Help Susan Crawford and Ben Wikler in Wisconsin - As a way of honoring our good friend Ben Wikler and supporting this critical April Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, I’m asking our community to donate to the Wisconsin Democratic Party today. The money raised here will make sure Ben has the resources he needs to keep his team in place so they can support this critical statewide race. I know many of you are already deeply involved here - thank you all.
Watch our new discussion with Susan and Ben. Thanks to a huge surge of support in recent days we have already raised $138,000, blowing past our original $50,000 goal and now our stretch goals of $100,000 and $125,000. We are now upping this to a new super-stretch goal of $150,000 by March 31st. Amazing work everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Help Get Ken Martin Off To A Strong Start - In this time of extraordinary challenge we need a strong DNC. Two weeks ago we set a goal of raising $100,000 by March 31st for our new Chair. Incredibly, over 1,000 of you have donated over $98,000 so far. Watch my interview with Ken about what he wants to do with the DNC, and chip in whatever you can to help Ken and the new exciting team at the DNC get off to a strong start. We now have a new stretch goal of $150,000 by March 31st after our very strong start for this effort (note that we did have some money clawed back due to an error in the amount someone gave!)
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 $62,000 so far towards our March 31st goal of $100,000 - thank you all. Let’s keep working it for Abigail!
Get Anderson Clayton And The NC Dems Fight The GOP’s Attempt To Steal A Supreme Court Seat - Last week we began a campaign to raise $50,000 for Anderson Clayton and the NC Dems. These funds will help the NC Dems get off to a great start in 2025 and help cover the costs of their fight to prevent the Republicans from stealing a Supreme Court seat we won together in 2024. Watch my new interview with Chair Clayton from last week to get an update on the fight over the Supreme Court seat and her plans to win elections and counter Trump this year. We’ve raised $22,000 so far - thank you all!
Help Hopium Celebrate Our 2nd Anniversary - In a post from this weekend I reflected back on our work together over these past two years, and made two asks:
1) Commit to bring in one new Hopium subscriber at the your current subscriber level this month. Help us grow this community, and bring our plucky, upbeat, hardworking spirit to more people across the US.
2) Upgrade your subscription to paid or paid to Founding (10% off annual paid subscriptions through March). The resources you provide allows me to work full time at Hopium and keeps our community vibrant, growing and making all sorts of good trouble every day.
Keep working hard all. Proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon
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