Trump-Musk Get A Seriously Bad CNN Poll, Europe/Canada Adopt Retaliatory Tariffs, Opening Up A Second Front

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Afternoon/morning all. The last few days (here, here) I’ve been writing to you that it has felt like some of the wheels have started coming off the Trump-Musk bus from hell. Musk has seen his Tesla stock lose half its value. SpaceX had another rocket blow up. Twitter/X had a global outage that appears to have been from their own internal mismanagement. Anti-Tesla protests are popping up in more places and getting bigger. Musk’s rancid attempt to dissemble the US government keeps losing in court, including the Supreme Court. Trump’s approval has dropped. Consumers have lost confidence in his economic stewardship. The economy has slowed, inflation remains too high, people are losing their jobs and trade wars are tanking our stock markets. Trump’s dangerous abandonment of Ukraine is being challenged very aggressively by our European allies, Democrats and even Senate Republicans. We are in the midst of one of the worst measles outbreaks since the measles vaccine was introduced over 60 years ago. The ridiculous car-salesmen-in-chief’s pitch for Teslas yesterday in the White House driveway showed how worried the two madmen are about their joint stumbles (WHY ISN’T MUSK WEARING A SUIT!).

A new CNN poll shows us why they are so worried. It is the worst poll of the Trump Presidency so. Some key takeaways:

- Trump’s job approval is 45%-54%, a 5 point drop in the last 2 weeks. For reference when Biden dropped out of the Presidential race his disapproval was 55%-56%. The only other President who was consistently underwater this early in their Presidency since polling became widely used in the 1950s was the first Trump. And that President lost the 2018 midterms badly and was voted out in 2020.

- Trump is deeply underwater on the economy and tariffs. In most polls and consumer confidence surveys Trump is no far below where he was pre-pandemic in his first term. Trump has already lost what was without doubt his most important hold on the electorate - that with him you get more opportunity, more money, a better life. In the right-leaning Emerson poll yesterday Trump was -11 on the economy. In CNN he is -12, and -22 on tariffs!!!!!!!!

- Musk’s job approval is 35%-53%. This is worse than Biden for most of his Presidency.

Look at these CNN headlines this morning:

I have argued to you in previous posts that it is pretty clear now that voters have become believe that Trump = higher prices, more struggle for their families. That they have connected the dots already between tariffs and higher prices, greater struggle. It’s one reason why Trump keeps backing off/delaying his broader tariffs. But it’s also why his implementation today of the steel and aluminum tariffs and the very rapid European and Canadian responses is likely to drive the economy and his standing down even further. Here is a new Washington Post writeup on the debilitating escalation of Trump’s trade wars today:

BRUSSELS — The European Union and Canada hit back Wednesday at President Donald Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs with their own levies, announcing tariffs on billions of dollars’ worth of products, including bourbon and motorcycles, while warning of further retaliation.

The 27-nation bloc said its two-stage response would target roughly $28 billion in U.S. exports, while Canada announced 25 percent retaliatory tariffs on roughly $20.7 billion ($29.8 billion Canadian dollars) worth of American goods.

The announcement of the European measures came at the same time Trump’s tariffs took effect Wednesday. Canada’s announcement to start retaliatory tariffs came several hours later Wednesday morning.

The U.S. decision raising tariffs on steel and aluminum to 25 percent for global imports is the latest salvo in Trump’s ongoing campaign to reshape America’s trading relationship with the rest of the world. European leaders have for months planned to swiftly retaliate, even as they have emphasized that a trade war would hurt both sides and tried to negotiate an off-ramp with the Trump administration….

……

“We deeply regret this measure,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a statement Wednesday, as she and other European officials indicated that they were still ready to negotiate. “Jobs are at stake, prices up, nobody needs that.”

Trump is stumbling here, making mistakes, and it is why I am recommending that Democrats to go on offense now, and prosecute our case against Trump far more aggressively. He is far weaker than he was a few weeks ago, and we need to keep pounding and making our case. This early Trump thing isn’t working for the American people, and the American people know it, already.

The core of my recommendations has been for Democrats to open up A Second Front against Trump and Musk, one expands our indictment of them from their failed economic leadership to include the dismantling of the government, their attack on our Constitutional order and rancid embrace of Putin. For Trump and Musk are breaking things that will be very hard, if not impossible to repair, and there is great urgency now for us to act.

This new CNN poll suggests that we have a great deal of running room to go after Trump-Musk on their attack on the US government:

Roughly 6 in 10 Americans say that Musk has neither the right experience nor the right judgment to make changes to the way the government works. There is uneasiness about Musk even among some of the president’s supporters: 28% of those who see Trump’s changes to the government as necessary doubt the tech billionaire has the judgment to carry them out.

A 55% majority of Americans say that the Trump administration’s changes to the federal government are being made largely to advance his agenda, with 45% calling the changes necessary to ensure the government functions properly.

Asked to weigh whether they’re more concerned about the Trump administration’s cuts to the federal government going too far or not far enough, 62% of Americans say they’re more worried about the former and fear important programs being shut down. The other 37% say they’re more worried about the cuts not going far enough in eliminating fraud and waste in the federal government. Nine in 10 Democrats and 69% of independents say they’re more concerned about losing important federal programs, while 73% of Republicans say they’re more concerned that fraud and waste will remain an issue in the government.

Whatever happens with the Senate Dems response to the House passed Continuing Resolution, I think Senate Dems have already missed an important opportunity to frame the CR fight as part of the Trump-Musk assault on our government and our Constitutional order. I’ve been making the case for sometime that Senate and House Dems need to see themselves as not just leaders of the minority in Congress but as leaders now of a broad national opposition movement bound by their oath to defend the American Constitutional order and our democracy itself. That order and Congress’ own authorities are under unprecedented assault. Senator Schumer and Senate Dems need to be far more aggressive in defending them than have been. The House Dems are clearly raising their game, fighting harder, being far more aggressive and taking their oath seriously.

It is time for Senator Schumer and the Senate Dems to join them.

In this post I reprise many of my recommendations for how Democrats can fight harder and smarter now. Here is the one that I feel is most urgent today:

….

Leaders Schumer and Jeffries should assign senior staff to work with the DNC, DSCC, DCCC and other party committees to come up with a new comms and political structure to ensure that we become the effective and ferocious opposition necessary to preserve our democracy now.

The Leaders have a powerful new team ready to go to work with and for them:

• millions of donors/volunteers/info warriors

• growing pro-democracy media ecosystem

• hundreds of capable and battle tested grassroots groups

• traditional allied groups, and the national party infrastructure

• tens of thousands of elected Democrats at all levels of government across the country

The Leaders should now empower staff to work with the new and hungry team at the DNC to imagine, design and build a new kind of political/comms super-structure integrating all of those who want and can help to respond to the needs of this extraordinary moment. We will not win with what what we have. We can and must build something new, more modern, more muscular, more effective.

…….

Trump and Musk are stumbling and we simply must become far, far more aggressive now.

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!

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 $133,000, 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 $21,000 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.

Paid subscribers should sign up for our Wednesday night get together here.

Let’s end today with these words from Thomas Jefferson that I think about literally every day as Trump yanks us back to a “regimen of their (our) barbarous ancestors” -

Keep working hard all. Our work is making a difference, and I am incredibly proud to be in this fight with all of you - Simon