Wednesday Reads: Trump’s Insanity Is Bringing Down His Presidency..

Posted: April 22, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , | 9 Comments

Good Afternoon!!

Democrats scored a big win last night as Virginia voters supported a redistricting plan favoring Democratic candidates. Trump’s plan to get Republican states to redistrict is coming back to bite him.

NBC News: Virginia voters approve Democrats’ redistricting plan, giving the party a midterm election boost.

Virginia voters on Tuesday approved a Democratic redistricting plan that could allow the party to pick up as many as four new seats in the midterm elections, NBC News projects.

With 97% of the vote in, the “yes” vote on the ballot referendum held a narrow lead of 3 percentage points.

Virginia governor Abigail Spanberger

The special election is a major victory for Democrats as they seek to gain control of the narrowly divided House this fall. Democrats have now won statewide votes in California and Virginia to redraw congressional maps as part of a mid-decade redistricting arms race that began last year when President Donald Trump urged GOP-led states to alter their district lines.

Republicans had hoped they could insulate their three-seat House majority, but the result of the redistricting back and forth may end up being close to a wash.

The constitutional amendment that was on the Virginia ballot Tuesday sought to authorize the Democratic-controlled Legislature to bypass the state’s bipartisan redistricting commission and implement a new congressional map through the end of the decade.

Democrats’ proposed map is designed to leave just one solidly Republican district out of 11 in the state. Currently, Virginia is represented by six Democrats and five Republicans in the House.

After Republicans enacted new maps last year in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina, Virginia offered a rare, seat-rich prize for Democrats — who control the redistricting process in fewer states — as they sought to respond.

“Virginia just changed the trajectory of the 2026 midterms,” Virginia Democratic state House Speaker Don Scott said in a statement. “At a moment when Trump and his allies are trying to lock in power before voters have a say, Virginians stepped up and leveled the playing field for the entire country.”

In a statement, Gov. Abigail Spanberger said she was looking forward to campaigning with candidates to win the new newly drawn congressional seats and said she was committed to returning to the state’s bipartisan redistricting after the 2030 census.

There will likely be court challenges, but for now it’s looking good for Democrats. Now Republicans are talking about redistricting in Florida, but that may be problematic.

The Hill: Spotlight shifts to Florida after Democrats win Virginia redistricting battle.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) has said he intends to call a special session of the state Legislature to draw a new map, which could net Republicans as many as four or five seats.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis

But those efforts face a big hurdle, as the Florida Constitution includes anti-gerrymandering language that prohibits redistricting with the intent to favor political parties. Changing it would require a snap popular referendum that would need to reach a 60 percent threshold — a heavy lift with time running short.

“This war is not over. Next week, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is hauling the Florida legislature back into a special session to redraw maps because Republicans know they are on the verge of an epic defeat in November,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said Tuesday night in a statement.

“If Florida Republicans proceed with this illegal scheme, they will only create more prime pick-up opportunities for Democrats, just as they did with Trump’s gerrymander in Texas.”

Some Republicans have also expressed concern about redistricting backfiring on the GOP in the state.

Alex Alvarado, in an analysis for the Civic Data and Research Institute, wrote Republicans could potentially go from four to seven competitive seats, but warned, “Aggressive redistricting strategies aimed at maximizing Republican seat count may paradoxically increase Republican vulnerability to adverse electoral conditions.”

That’s particularly true when political winds are blowing hard against President Trump and his party.

Yes, Trump’s poll numbers keep getting worse.

The Guardian: Trump approval slips as polls show warning signs for Republicans ahead of midterms.

A trio of political polls indicate public approval of Donald Trump’s management of the US economy, immigration and the Iran conflict is slipping, flashing warning lights for Trump-aligned Republican candidates with six months to go until the US midterm elections.

Polls by Reuters-Ipsos poll, Strength in Numbers-Verasight and AP-NORC had the president’s approval rating hovering in the mid-30s, at 36%, 35% and 33% respectively, which are near his lowest numbers.

The AP-NORC center for public affairs research poll published on Monday found that seven in 10 Americans described the economy as poor and think the country is headed in the wrong direction.

The poll showed that Trump’s handling of the economy has fallen to 30% approval, down from 38% in March, while 72% said the country is headed in the wrong direction, a figure unchanged since February. Just 23% approve of how he is handling the cost of living, while 76% disapprove.

A Reuters-IPSOS poll published on Wednesday also found that Trump’s signature migrant deportation policies could harm Republicans in November’s congressional elections: 52% of Americans said they were less likely to support a candidate who backs Trump’s approach to deportations, significantly more than the 42% who said they were more likely to support such a candidate.

That poll also found division on the issue was greater on the issue among non-aligned voters, or independents, with 57% saying they prefer a candidate who opposes Trump’s deportations and 32% preferring candidates who support Trump on the issue.

A bit more from the Guardian article:

The president’s immigration policy was supported by 50% of the country in the weeks after his January 2025 inauguration. But according to Reuters, only 40% currently approve. After the clashes between immigration enforcement agents and protesters early in the year, resulting in two protester deaths in Minneapolis, the administration has slowed its detention of immigrants.

An NBC News decision desk poll separately found that Trump’s personal approval rating has hit a second-term low, with 37% of adults approving of Trump’s performance as president, while 63% disapprove. Among those, 50% said they disapprove strongly.

Despite some signs of fracturing in Trump’s base, the NBC poll found 83% of Republicans still give Trump a positive approval rating, down 4 points from earlier this year – and his handling of the economy was strongly approved by 52% compared to 58% previously.

But the challenges faced by Republican candidates to defend their twin majorities in Congress are stark. The poll found that one-third of Americans believe the country is on the right track while two-thirds believe it is on the wrong track.

At CNN, Aaron Blake has more analysis of Trump’s polls: The bottom could be falling out in Trump’s polls.

It was almost exactly this time 20 years ago that the bottom began to fall out on George W. Bush’s approval ratings. And as Bush’s numbers in most polls fell into the 30s for the first time in late winter and early spring, the culprit was clear: the Iraq war.

History could be repeating itself with President Donald Trump in 2026. Just swap Iraq with Iran.

Three new polls released Tuesday showed Trump’s approval rating in the mid-30s: 36% in a Reuters-Ipsos poll, 35% in a Strength in Numbers-Verasight poll and 33% in an AP-NORC poll. They follow an NBC News poll over the weekend that showed Trump hitting a new low of 37%.

Over the past month now, eight of nine quality polls tracked by CNN have shown Trump in the 30s.

The only exception was a Fox News poll pegging Trump at 41%, but even that showed Trump with his worst numbers in its polls since 2017.

Read Blake’s in-depth analysis at CNN if you’re interested. You can also read Paul Krugman’s Substack today for a deep dive on how Americans view Trump’s economy: Bad Vibes and Broken Promises.

Now check this out from G. Elliott Morris at Strength In Numbers: New poll: 55% support impeaching Trump.

On April 7, President Trump posted on Truth Social that Iran’s “whole civilization will die tonight,” capping a week of increasingly unhinged posts about the war in Iran (in another, the president told Iran’s leaders to “Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell. … Praise be to Allah!”). The posts have drawn sharp criticism from political and media figures across the political spectrum, including prominent right-wing voices who backed Trump in 2024. Tucker Carlson called the threats against Iran’s civilian infrastructure a war crime and now says he regrets helping elect Trump, while Alex Jones, Megyn Kelly, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Theo Von, and Tim Dillon have also spoken out.

In Congress, Rep. John Larson has introduced 13 articles of impeachment against Trump, with more than 85 House members publicly backing either impeachment or invoking the 25th Amendment. All of which raises the question: how much of the general public wants Trump impeached? If even his most right-wing supporters are breaking away, support among the broader public is presumably pretty high.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

A new Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll conducted April 10-14, 2026 finds 55% of U.S. adults say the House should vote to impeach Trump. 37% oppose, and 8% are unsure. A surprising percentage of both Republicans and Trump’s own 2024 voters say they would support impeachment if a vote were held today.

That net +18 verdict puts Trump in the neighborhood of the numbers Richard Nixon saw at the peak of the Watergate scandal in August 1974 — more on that comparison below. The toplines and crosstabs for this poll can be found on the Strength In Numbers website.l [….]

Our new poll shows that 55% of U.S. adults support the House voting to impeach Trump, while 37% oppose and 8% are unsure.

As for the president’s overall approval rating, there is a strong intensity gap in responses to our poll. Overall, 45% of all adults say they strongly support impeachment, while only 30% say they strongly oppose it. That is a 15-point intensity gap in favor of impeachment — the people who want Trump out are both more numerous and more committed than the people who want him to stay.

Read more analysis of these poll results and see charts at the link above.

Trump’s war is not going well and he is handling the failures badly. He can’t control himself from constantly posting on Truth Social, and apparently, he’s not in control f his behavior behind the scenes either.

You probably heard about the Wall Street Journal report a few days ago that Trump was kept out of the situation room during the rescue of the missing pilot from the jet that Iran shot down. The Independent: Trump kept out of the room during operation to find downed pilots in Iran after ‘screaming’ at aides for hours, report says.

When President Donald Trump learned that two American pilots had gone missing in Iran on Good Friday, he “screamed at aides for hours” and was then “kept out of the room” while his team was given minute-by-minute updates, according to a report.

An F-15 fighter jet was shot down over Iran on April 3, prompting a high-stakes rescue mission for the missing airmen. One crew member was swiftly rescued by U.S. forces after ejecting before the aircraft went down – but the second crew member spent more than 24 hours behind enemy lines before he was safely extracted.

Back in Washington, D.C., Trump’s fears about how the war was playing out “were ramping up,” according to The Wall Street Journal.

“Trump screamed at aides for hours” after he was informed the fighter jet had been shot down and two airmen were missing, the outlet reported, citing a senior administration official. “Images of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis — one of the biggest international policy failures of a presidency in recent times — had been looming large in his mind,” WSJ reported.

Over the next 24 hours, Trump’s most senior aides and administration officials, including Vice President JD Vance and White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, dialed into the Situation Room to receive updates.

Trump was not included in the meeting but was kept updated “at meaningful moments” on the phone, according to the WSJ, citing a senior administration official.

“Aides kept the president out of the room as they got minute-by-minute updates because they believed his impatience wouldn’t be helpful,” the official told the newspaper.

Trump’s dementia is obviously getting worse, and the mainstream media won’t come out and say it. This is from Heather Cox Richardson’s report from yesterday:

Alayna Treene and Kevin Liptak of CNN reported last night that by the end of last week, negotiators for the U.S. and Iran appeared to be on the verge of hammering out an end to hostilities before the two-week ceasefire ends on Wednesday. Then Trump took to the media to crow that Iranian leaders had “agreed to everything,” including the removal of its enriched uranium, and that “Iran has agreed never to close the Strait of Hormuz again.” He promised that Iran had agreed to end its nuclear program forever and that talks “should go very quickly.” Trump declared the breakthrough was “A GREAT AND BRILLIANT DAY FOR THE WORLD!” and asked why media outlets questioning the alleged deal didn’t “just say, at the right time, JOB WELL DONE, MR. PRESIDENT?”

Iranian negotiators said Trump’s claims were false and that if he didn’t remove the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, they would reclose the Strait of Hormuz they had just opened. “The Iranians didn’t appreciate [Trump] negotiating through social media and making it appear as if they had signed off on issues they hadn’t yet agreed to, and ones that aren’t popular with their people back home,” a source told Treene and Liptak.

Over the weekend, Iranians closed the strait and the U.S. fired on an Iranian vessel. On Sunday, even as two senior U.S. government officials were on television saying Vice President J.D. Vance would lead a new round of talks in Pakistan, Trump was on the phone telling reporters that he wouldn’t. On Monday, Trump told a reporter that Vance was in the air about to touch down in Pakistan just minutes before Vance’s motorcade arrived at the White House.

After Iranian officials said today they were not sure they would respond to U.S. positions or go to Pakistan for talks, Vance’s trip has been put on hold. Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, complained of “contradictory messages, inconsistent behavior and unacceptable actions by the American side,” on Iran’s state media.

Trump is making everything worse with his childish impatience and his inability to stop posting nonsense and lies.

For his part, Trump blamed the Democrats for the chaos in U.S. diplomacy. “The Democrats are doing everything possible to hurt the very strong position we are in with respect to Iran,” his social media account posted yesterday. The post insisted “it will be done RIGHT, and we won’t let the Weak and Pathetic Democrats, TRAITORS ALL, who for years have been talking about the Dangers of Iran, and that something has to be done, but now, since I’m the one doing it, belittle the accomplishments of our Military and the Trump Administration. This is being perfectly executed, on the scale of Venezuela, just a bigger, more complex operation.”

As David S. Bernstein of Good Politics/Bad Politics noted, Trump’s account this morning reposted another account claiming that Iran was preparing to execute eight women, showing AI-generated images of them. Trump posted: “To the Iranian leaders who will soon be in negotiations with my representatives: I would greatly appreciate the release of these women. I am sure that they will respect the fact that you did so. Please do them no harm! Would be a great start to our negotiations!!!” As Bernstein put it: Trump urged Iran “to start peace negotiations by releasing non-existent, AI-generated women some rando posted about on X.”

He is an idiot! We can only hope to hang on until Democrats take over the House and Senate so we can impeach and remove him. Trump was on Truth Social again last night.

The Daily Beast: Sleepless Trump, 79, Melts Down in Barrage of Unhinged Posts.

President Donald Trump spent the night firing off posts on his social media platform, repeatedly taking aim at both his domestic political enemies and the leaders of Iran.

The Truth Social rampage culminated in a flurry of 14 posts in less than an hour.

The meltdown came just days after it was revealed that Trump was kept out of a crisis room where they were handling the rescue of two U.S. airmen in Iran because the president had become too agitated.

In subsequent posts, the president, 79, raged at the Wall Street Journal’s Editorial Board, at Democratic strategist James Carville, and at the Supreme Court justices he himself appointed during his first term—before pivoting back to the subject of Iran.

“Iran doesn’t want the Strait of Hormuz closed, they want it open so they can make $500 Million Dollars a day,” the president wrote at 8.36 p.m, before arguing that Iran only wants the Strait closed because U.S. forces have it blockaded.

“People approached me four days ago, saying, ‘Sir, Iran wants to open up the Strait, immediately,’” Trump continued. “But if we do that, there can never be a Deal with Iran, unless we blow up the rest of their Country, their leaders included!”

He also ranted about non-Iran things; you can read more at The Daily Beast link. After spewing this nonsense, Trump apparently fell asleep for a few hours, and then began posting again.

The Daily Beast: Restless Trump, 79, Unravels in All-Night Posting Spiral.

Donald Trump was back on Truth Social before dawn Wednesday, hammering out four more posts in half an hour after barely six hours of sleep.

The 79-year-old president, whose nocturnal posting habits are well documented, signed off just after midnight following a 12-hour evening binge in which he spat out 19 posts—ripping into Iran, the Wall Street Journal, Democratic strategist James Carville, 81, and even the conservative-majority Supreme Court.

Picking up his tirade shortly before 6 a.m. Eastern, Trump opened with a TikTok titled “Endgame and Final Warning,” lifted from an account calling itself @devildoggae.

The clip shows U.S. historian Victor Davis Hanson delivering a solemn warning to the camera that Iran has “walked right into a noose” militarily and economically, leaving the regime with three options—go down in a blaze of glory, accept one-sided negotiations, or surrender outright—and warning that any nuclear deal is worthless unless America is willing to enforce it.

Minutes later, Trump posted a second clip captioned “Former Navy Seal Eli Crane Lights Into Mark Kelly Over His Treasonous Stunt.” The footage shows the bearded Crane, 46, an Arizona Republican and former SEAL, leaning over his microphone to grill a uniformed witness about the duty of service members to refuse unlawful orders—the very principle Kelly had invoked….

Trump then reposted two supporters who had quote-posted his own videos back at him. One, a self-described “Proud Deplorable” who writes under the handle @thewriterme and lists her interests as “America,” asked about Hanson’s screed: “What will happen next?”

Next was a post by Sami Nathaniel, a self-styled “Trump fan” posting under the handle @NathanielSami, who demanded: “Mark Kelly needs to be held accountable! LOCK HIM UP.!!!” [….]

Trump’s pre-dawn barrage suggested Iran is also still very much on the president’s mind. Before finally turning in last night, Trump had posted repeatedly about the Strait of Hormuz, claiming Tehran’s regime was “collapsing financially,” that its forces were “not getting paid,” and signing off with a self-pitying “SOS!!!”
If people who don’t use social media could see these Trump meltdowns, his polls would likely be even worse than they are now.

That’s all I have for today. I’ll post a few news links in the comment thread. Have a peaceful Wednesday.