Trump’s list of political liabilities just keeps growing: political strategist

With the United States' 2026 midterms only three and one-half months away, President Donald Trump is hoping that attacking Democrats as "communists" will sway enough voters to keep Republicans in charge of Congress. But Trump continues to suffer from weak approval ratings in one poll after another, and a GOP insider interviewed by Politico acknowledged, "We're preparing for the bottom to fall out."

Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg expressed cautious optimism during a late July appearance on The New Republic's "The Daily Blast" podcast, arguing that Trump's political liabilities continue to grow. But Rosenberg and host Greg Sargent also acknowledged that a lot could happen between now and November.

Sargent, refencing Politico's "really striking" reporting, told Rosenberg, "I'm just not ready to get that optimistic ... Are you there yet or not? And why?"

The Democratic strategist replied, "No, I think we have a shot here, right? I mean, it's a year of opportunity for us. How well we seize it is really going to be in part up to us. They've created a situation where he's already fallen very far, much further than where he was in 2018 at this point. The national climate is plus seven or so, or above, for us, which means that the House should flip. We have polls showing Sherrod Brown up — independent polls showing Sherrod Brown up in Ohio, and Mary Peltola up in Alaska, and Josh Turek up in Iowa. I mean, these are states that Trump won by more than ten points."

Rosenberg and Sargent went on to discuss the many political problems Republicans are facing in the midterms, from the war in Iran to the economy to immigration.

"Well, let's add a…. thing that's going to erode their position before the election, which is that both the private plans and the public health care plans — people are going to start getting notices of the premium increases," Rosenberg told Sargent. "And what we're seeing in the data is that even private plans are going to see significant cost increases, and that 50 percent of businesses have said in surveys that they're going to pass those cost increases on to workers in their companies. And so, this is all going to happen in October, right before the election — that tens and tens of millions of people are going to be formally notified that their premiums are going to increase because of Donald Trump and the Republicans, right before the election."

Rosenberg continued, "And then finally ... We're starting to get data that people are being pushed off of SNAP at a much higher rate than was anticipated. And so, you've now got potentially tens of millions of people falling into greater food insecurity than was anticipated. And so, all of these trend lines together add up to this basic reality, which is that Donald Trump and the Republicans have purposefully done extraordinary harm to the American people and to the United States itself in order to enrich themselves and their friends. And it is an extraordinary betrayal of the American people. People have figured it out."