The trigger that finally cracked Trump's base

US President Donald Trump kisses first lady Melania Trump after signing an executive order on women's health, spearheaded by first lady Melania Trump, in the Rose Garden at the White House in Washington, DC, US, October 19, 2026.

During the president's first term, it was impossible to get his supporters to accept that the Russians really did help him defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016, and that the late Robert Mueller's investigation proved it. As far as they were concerned, the Russia thing was a hoax invented by their enemies, real and imagined. There was no way Donald Trump could be a traitor.

I wonder if that might be changing. Trump has cracked his base of power, first by reneging on his promise to release the complete Epstein files, and bring those involved in the alleged conspiracy to justice. Second, he burned up the economy with a combination of illegal war, illegal taxes and illegal deportations. Then last week, he made a series of decisions so brazen it shocked the cynical opportunists of the Washington press corps. The New Yorker's Susan Glasser said there is an October Surprise this election season. It's Trump's "pivot to Putin."

For reasons no one can explain, beyond that he's the weakest strongman ever, Trump lifted sanctions on Russian diesel. Easing restrictions will not only reverse the punishment for Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine, but boost funding for his continued aggression against it. Last week, Trump (or someone, maybe Elon Musk) pulled the plug on Starshield, the military version of the Starlink satellite system used by Ukraine, just as Russia was pounding it with the biggest ballistic missile attack yet. Then Friday, Trump said he would not enforce new Russian sanctions approved by Congress two days before they were to take effect.

That last decision was the most significant, according to The Atlantic's Tom Nichols. "The American commander in chief has abandoned the Western order, the most successful — and powerful — security arrangement in human history," he wrote Sunday. "Trump’s suspension of the law [sanctions] is a signal to Ukraine, to Russia, to Europe, and to America’s NATO allies that the Trump White House and Putin’s Kremlin are now on the same side."

National Review's Andrew McCarthy, who is not a Democrat or a liberal, took it a step farther. He suggested Trump is acting in accordance with the very definition of treason in the US Constitution. "Putin’s war of aggression and hoped-for conquest against Ukraine … is part of his quest to reconstitute America’s Soviet enemy," he wrote. "And President Donald Trump is giving him aid and comfort.” McCarthy called on the Congress to convene "immediate hearings about this week’s shocking escalation of the Trump-Putin alliance.”

CNN's Jake Tapper did not weigh in on the substance of last week's news, but did remind his Twitter followers today that on this day 10 years ago, at the final debate with Trump, Hillary Clinton said Putin "would rather have a puppet as president." Trump: "You're the puppet."

Hillary Clinton replied: "It's pretty clear you won't admit that the Russians have engaged in cyber-attacks against the United States of America, that you encouraged espionage against our people, that you are willing to spout the Putin line, sign up for his wishlist, break up NATO, do whatever he wants to do, and that you continue to get help from him."

Tapper is perhaps the most cynical of all the cynical opportunists who constitute the press corps. His reputation and reporting were central to the "but her emails" dynamic that dragged Clinton. But with Trump's approval now falling as low as 30 percent, Tapper can see which way the wind is blowing. Reposting Clinton's remarks, in light of the bipartisan reaction to the "pivot to Putin," seems almost conventional. It's a sign that a subject that used to be controversial – Russia! Russia! Russia! – could soon become merely common sense.

A change to elite consensus is one thing. A change to mainstream consensus is another. The cost of living has been magnified by the cost of war such that most Americans are now focused on corruption – not just his, but that of the entire "Epstein class." Corruption is no longer an abstraction that offends the precious sensibilities of liberals. It's real and it hurts.

A new Fox poll showed nine in 10 Americans say corruption is their top worry. Neither affordability nor health care are more important. A new poll by the Post found two in three believe Trump is enriching himself as president. The Post said "most of the increase over the past year has come from people who lean Republican." (An AP poll echoed the same.) CNN reported that Republican operatives conducting focus groups to gauge the opinions of GOP voters in the midwest found that they blame rising gas prices on "corrupt politicians" and "billionaires." That shocked "some longtime strategists who’ve never seen government corruption emerge as a top issue for so many Republican voters in congressional races."

Russia wants peace, Ukraine wants war, Russia is helping us and Ukraine is hurting us by daring to defend itself. Also, we must be nice to Russia or it will help Iran. pic.twitter.com/z1IW0nttVy
— Yaroslav Trofimov (@yarotrof) October 19, 2026

Miles Taylor, who served in the first Trump administration, said a new consensus on corruption is a consequence of the president making it impossible to ignore. "He turned it from a background story that’s always playing out in Washington into basically the lead story of every news cycle for the past 18 month," he said. "The high prices people are experiencing at the grocery and at the pump are in no small part because of Trump’s corruption."

It wasn't supposed to happen, because it has never happened in the history of polling, Taylor later discovered. But if corruption can achieve its current level of visibility, I don't see why the same thing can't happen to Trump's corrupt relationship with Putin. His own people think he's a crook. They are making plans to punish him. They recognize the midterms mark the end of an era. There's no longer a reason to keep denying what's been obvious to others.

Trump is Putin's puppet.

The Wall Street Journalreported this morning that Putin wants a meeting next month between him, Trump and Xi Jinping to negotiate a "Ukraine deal." This evening, the Postreported that Trump is holding up shipments of Patriot missiles to Ukraine. The first reflects hope in divvying up the world, the second an awareness that time is running out. Ukraine's fate is in Europe's hands for now, but the "pivot to Putin" may not be permanent. Disgust with corruption is reaching its zenith, which means Trump's usefulness is reaching its end.

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