Full Episode - Trump’s Polling Numbers Should Terrify The GOP + Why The West Is Living In A 1930s-Style Crisis Again

Chuck Todd unpacks a wave of devastating new polling that shows Americans have lost confidence in Trump across nearly every metric, with his approval cratering among independents and only his hardcore base still standing by him. He notes Trump is underwater on virtually every issue except taxes, immigration, and the border — that his trustworthiness is lower than any past president, that even 22% of his own 2024 voters don't believe he's kept his promises, and that his approval has collapsed with younger voters even as it holds up with the elderly. In a particularly striking finding, only 1 in 10 Americans approve of Trump naming things after himself, and even the "own the libs" voters can't get behind that particular vanity. Todd warns this is a political disaster in the making for Republicans: the enthusiasm gap is now massive in the Democrats' favor, and the Iran war is polling more unpopular than the worst polling ever recorded for Iraq or Vietnam. Yet despite all this, neither party's brand has actually improved with swing voters — both parties still carry almost identical unfavorability ratings, voters of both parties don't even want their leaders to work across the aisle anymore, and the political incentives are now firmly aligned with confrontation rather than compromise — creating an enormous opportunity for independent candidates that neither major party seems prepared to address. On Iran, he says there is no political room for Trump to escalate militarily — his only real escalation option would be ground troops, which would risk total political collapse — and predicts the eventual deal will look like whatever framework the Iranians put forward. He flags a striking recent Tucker Carlson interview in which Carlson was forced to face hard facts, observing that Tucker increasingly looks like a combination of Pat Buchanan and Roger Ailes who is genuinely trying to build a political movement of his own. He returns to the case for expanding the House of Representatives as the fix for the Supreme Court's Voting Rights Act ruling, warns that Republicans could pay a serious political price if Southern voters perceive the GOP as actively trying to disenfranchise Black voters and closes with the news that Janet Mills has dropped out of the Maine Senate race — leaving Democrats now trying to coalesce around Graham Platner, in what Chuck says feels increasingly like a mirror image of the 2016 presidential campaign. 

Then, Yale political scientist Ian Shapiro — author of the new book After the Fall — joins the Chuck Toddcast for a wide-ranging conversation about the missed opportunities of the post-Cold War era and what it would take to actually fix what's broken in the global political economy. Shapiro argues America fundamentally squandered its chance to integrate Russia into the West after the Soviet collapse — there should have been a Marshall Plan for Russia along the lines of what was done for Germany and Japan after World War II, and both Yeltsin and Putin (in his early years) actively lobbied to join the Western order. Clinton was hesitant to help Russia economically, the 1994 midterm results pushed him away from foreign policy ambition entirely, and the eventual pivot toward NATO expansion in Eastern Europe — rather than transforming NATO into something genuinely inclusive — froze Russia out and is exactly when Putin's worldview hardened into the revanchism we're dealing with today. Shapiro extends this analysis to 2008, calling the financial crisis another massive missed opportunity: Obama had to bail out the banks, but his failure to insist on a parallel bailout for Main Street allowed the elites to rescue themselves while imposing austerity on everyone else, which directly fueled the right-wing populism now reshaping politics across the West.

The conversation pivots to what comes next. Shapiro is clear that the good policies of the 2030s won't be a rehash of the New Deal — they need to address modern realities. He argues governments need to help workers be flexible rather than redistributing wealth through politically toxic taxation, advocating instead for portable health insurance and portable child care that follows the worker. Shapiro makes a forceful case for immigration as the only realistic answer to America's demographic challenges, noting that Spain and Poland are economically outperforming much of Europe specifically because they've embraced immigration to support aging populations. He warns that we're living in a world disturbingly similar to the 1930s — if ordinary people don't benefit from economic growth, they will not continue supporting the existing order — and notes that right-wing populists don't actually have answers; they just attack the elites. Shapiro argues Trump is inadvertently benefiting China enormously, but cautions that authoritarian governments are fundamentally bad at managing complex economies, so it's still unlikely China's model wins the 21st century. Shapiro closes by warning that the anti-Trump coalition has become too big to govern, but that if Zohran Mamdani succeeds in New York, it could meaningfully energize progressive politics nationally — proof that the road forward requires real ideas about power, not just opposition to Trumpism.

Finally, Chuck hops into the ToddCast Time Machine to revisit the Hindenburg disaster and how it was the origin of “breaking news”, and also answers listeners’ questions in the “Ask Chuck” segment.

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Timeline:

(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements)

00:00 Chuck Todd’s introduction

08:30 New polling shows Americans have no confidence in Trump

09:15 Trump’s approval has cratered with independent voters

10:00 Trump is only above his approval rating on taxes, immigration and border

10:45 The only people that approve of Trump are his base

12:45 The polling shows a massive repudiation of Trump

14:15 Trump’s trustworthiness is lower than any past president

16:45 Only 78% of Trump voters believe he’s kept his promises

18:15 Trump’s highest approval is with older voters, collapsed with younger voters

20:00 Only 1 in 10 Americans approve of Trump naming things after himself

21:00 Even the “own the libs” voters don’t like Trump naming things after himself

24:30 Republicans expected ethics in government to improve & they haven’t

25:45 Both parties still have almost identical unfavorability ratings

26:15 The Democratic brand hasn’t improved amongst swing voters

28:15 Voters of both parties don’t want leaders to work across the aisle

29:15 Neither side is incentivized to compromise

31:15 Voters are rewarding confrontation

33:45 Dems more trusted on healthcare, Republicans trusted on crime

34:15 Almost every other issue is up for grabs for both parties

34:45 Neither party has trust on dealing with AI

36:15 There’s a huge opportunity for independents in this political climate

36:45 There’s a huge enthusiasm gap favoring the Democrats

38:00 This is a political disaster in the making for Republicans

38:30 Iran war is more unpopular than worst polling for Iraq & Vietnam

40:1