Sep 13, 2026 · 47 min · 12 segments
In this podcast, host Samantha Hancox-Li and guest Greg Sargent, staff writer for The New Republic and host of the Daily Blast podcast, discuss Trump's cratering poll numbers—worse than Bush's after…
Greg SargentGuest
Samantha Hancox-LiHostSo that's something I would really like to believe, but I kind of want to press you on this a little bit because we've just talked about how it's possible to over-read or over-interpret popularity and elections and so forth, right? That we ourselves were like, oh yeah, Trump stands for like this and this and this and this, and these are all things that he's doing and they're not working.
And like, is that how the ordinary American is seeing this? Or are they just like, oh, gas prices are up and I don't like that.
to make the case against Trumpism in sort of a very broad way, if that makes sense.
We have kind of an opening to say, these things were sold to you as as policies that would revitalize the United States, that would rescue the working class and put it on a much more stable foundation as a way to make America great again, to coin a phrase.
And these policies have all failed because the worldview they're premised on is is itself false, that zero sum is the way to build policy, right? Zero sum is kind of the through line for all this, isn't it? On immigration, the basic pitch has always been immigrants are taking the jobs of young native born white males and that the result of that is that they're not really as marriageable or as attractive to women.
And that's one of the reasons we're, you know, seeing a crisis among young men and, and, you know, I know you hate that
The point is they have an argument, like they have a big argument about this stuff.
That's something that I've written about, I've been thinking about for a long time, is this, like you said, a zero-sum worldview and the way that that zero-sum worldview incorporates a view of gender relations incorporates a view of immigration, incorporates a view of racial relations, because it's like fundamentally like, to put it mildly, like a thuggish and criminal worldview that basically thinks we have to take other people's stuff because otherwise they're going to take our stuff and they're going to take our women.
And I think especially in this administration, just a thuggish view of the world, a rapist view of the world, right? That they just see themselves as predators.
Everybody is a would-be predator is the point, right? Everybody would be doing this if they could.
So that's something I would really like to believe, but I kind of want to press you on this a little bit because we've just talked about how it's possible to over-read or over-interpret popularity and elections and so forth, right? That we ourselves were like, oh yeah, Trump stands for like this and this and this and this, and these are all things that he's doing and they're not working.
And like, is that how the ordinary American is seeing this? Or are they just like, oh, gas prices are up and I don't like that.
to make the case against Trumpism in sort of a very broad way, if that makes sense.
We have kind of an opening to say, these things were sold to you as as policies that would revitalize the United States, that would rescue the working class and put it on a much more stable foundation as a way to make America great again, to coin a phrase.
And these policies have all failed because the worldview they're premised on is is itself false, that zero sum is the way to build policy, right? Zero sum is kind of the through line for all this, isn't it? On immigration, the basic pitch has always been immigrants are taking the jobs of young native born white males and that the result of that is that they're not really as marriageable or as attractive to women.
And that's one of the reasons we're, you know, seeing a crisis among young men and, and, you know, I know you hate that
The point is they have an argument, like they have a big argument about this stuff.
That's something that I've written about, I've been thinking about for a long time, is this, like you said, a zero-sum worldview and the way that that zero-sum worldview incorporates a view of gender relations incorporates a view of immigration, incorporates a view of racial relations, because it's like fundamentally like, to put it mildly, like a thuggish and criminal worldview that basically thinks we have to take other people's stuff because otherwise they're going to take our stuff and they're going to take our women.
And I think especially in this administration, just a thuggish view of the world, a rapist view of the world, right? That they just see themselves as predators.
Everybody is a would-be predator is the point, right? Everybody would be doing this if they could.
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