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The floor just collapsed under Trump as approval from longtime supporters slips

According to a new poll, President Donald Trump is losing the support of his most essential voting bloc fast, as his net approval among men has plunged from -13 to -19 in just one month.

The six-point decline was revealed in a Focaldata/Financial Times survey, and it represents a dramatic loss of ground among the very voters who put Trump in office in 2024. According to Newsweek, “He won male voters by 12 percent over then-Vice President Kamala Harris, making them a cornerstone of his electoral coalition, data from Pew Research Center shows…It also fits into a broader pattern of slipping approval for the president.”

What’s more, the new poll “found Trump's overall approval at 34 percent versus a 57 percent disapproval rating, while recent polling has shown growing voter dissatisfaction over the economy, inflation and the cost of living, issues that consistently rank among Americans' top concerns ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.” As the survey itself notes, “President Trump's net approval rating has reached an all-time low of -23, with the share of Americans disapproving of his performance rising for the fourth consecutive month to 57 percent.”

Approval for Trump has also continued to slip in specific areas where he was once considered the strongest. On immigration and border security, for example, his approval is just 41 percent versus 46 percent disapproval. On inflation and cost of living, his approval is a mere 20 percent, with 67 percent disapproval. And when it comes to jobs and the economy overall, just 29 percent approve of his performance while 56 percent disapprove.

Polling earlier in the year had already showed that Trump was slipping with men, though his male voters were remaining more loyal than his female supporters. As Newsweek notes, “The latest Focaldata results indicate that even one of the president's most reliable constituencies could be showing signs of erosion.”

This latest poll comes on the heels of the release of a survey showing that Trump is losing another group that was key to this winning 2024 coalition: the Reluctant Right. Making up roughly 20 percent of his electorate that year, this group is comprised of voters who only cast for Trump because they didn’t like Kamala Harris, 38 percent of whom say they will vote for Democratic or otherwise non-Republican candidates in the midterms, while the survey director forecasts that a sizeable portion beyond that will skip voting altogether.

Trump’s downward slide with the Reluctant Right has been largely driven by younger voters who have been angered by the Epstein scandal, the disastrous war with Iran, and the crumbling economy.

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Prominent Republican skewers MAGA as Trump’s approval continues death spiral

Amid news that President Donald Trump’s approval rating has plunged to another historic low, a prominent Republican pointed out that if “polling trends stay on course, he'll be in the 20s by late summer.”

This was the assessment of Lincoln Project co-founder Rick Wilson, who accompanied it with a dose of snark, adding, “By the end of his term, there will be so few people who admit to being MAGA that you could put them at a table in a Waffle House.”

Wilson’s jibe comes as a new poll shows Trump’s approval at just 30 percent. As Newsweek explains, it is “the lowest level recorded in the survey's recent trend and a figure that, if reflected more broadly, would place him in territory historically associated with difficult midterm environments for incumbent presidents.” While this survey is 6 to 7 percent lower than most other national polls, “it highlights a broader trend that has emerged across multiple pollsters: more Americans disapprove than approve of the president's performance.”

What’s more, the survey looks worse when it focuses on the economy specifically, which Trump likes to tout as his greatest strength. But according to the poll, just 26 percent of voters approve of the president’s handling of the economy, while 73 percent say the economy will continue to get worse and 65 percent say it’s already in recession. As Newsweek notes, “that represents a notable deterioration from May, when 29 percent approved and 67 percent disapproved. The contrast with Trump's first term is particularly striking. In June 2018, 41 percent approved of his handling of the economy.”

If the trend holds, Trump is on a trajectory to leave office as one of the most unpopular presidents in history, and if Wilson’s forecast is right, Trump may be the most unpopular. When Trump left office in 2021, he did so with a historically low 34 percent approval, tying George W. Bush and Jimmy Carter. Only two presidents ended their terms with lower numbers: Harry S. Truman with 32 percent and Richard Nixon with 24 percent.

Another poll released Tuesday found that Trump is also wildly unpopular outside the U.S. Just 23 percent of respondents spanning 36 countries said they have confidence in Trump, while 37 percent said they have an unfavorable view of the U.S., and 50 percent said the country is not a reliable partner. As Forbes explains, “The share of respondents who see the U.S. as a reliable partner has plummeted in multiple countries since Pew last asked the question, during Biden’s term, dropping from 83 percent to 31 percent in Sweden, 83 percent to 35 percent in Canada, 62 percent to 27 percent in France and 76 percent to 59 percent in Japan.”

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GOP verges on 'post-Watergate' approval thanks to Trump toxicity: Republican

President Donald Trump's approval rating continues to find new lows once thought impossible, and as one former Republican lawmaker told CNN, this has made the midterm environment as bad for the GOP as it was "post-Watergate."

On Tuesday, CNN data guru Harry Enten broke down a new Reuters/Ipsos poll, which put Trump's approval rating at 33 percent, compared to a 64 percent disapproval rating, putting him a staggering 31 points underwater, comparable to the worst days for former President George W. Bush. This also marked a major tumble in popularity overall for Trump, as the same poll put his approval 6 points above water at the start of his second term.

"You know, if this were a game of limbo, President Trump would be winning," Enten said. "Unfortunately, this is the game of presidential popularity, and he is reaching record lows yet again. He is losing."

Following that breakdown from Enten, host John Berman discussed the situation with Francis Rooney, the former Republican congressman from Florida who also served as the U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See under Bush. Rooney echoed comments from earlier in the broadcast, calling Republicans "sclerotic," or slow and stuck in their ways, considering that they "will still follow this guy after all the ridiculous things he's done."

"But then, on the other hand, I think they've lost moderates, Reagan, Bush republicans, and that's going to tell the tale when they show up or whether they don't show up; they're going to have a major impact on this election," Rooney said. "We could be in post-Watergate country now."

"You think the environment for Republicans might be as it was after Watergate in 1974?" Berman asked, evoking the time when former President Richard Nixon's scandals soured the country on Republican leadership.

"I think it could be, from what I'm reading about the polls and hearing around the country in different races and things," Rooney responded.

Berman brought up comments from West Virginia Sen. Jim Justice, who argued that Republicans need to pay more attention to the issues, like affordability, that voters really care about. Justice also said that some of those issues have been worsened by Trump's Iran war.

"I think it's a lot broader than just the war in Iran," Rooney said. "I think we have an administration and a president that really don't understand what drives and motivates your average American, your average person, who they don't have any connection with because they're all billionaires. [An average voter] cares about what his groceries cost, his car costs, his gasoline cost and his house mortgage cost. And none of those are going the right way. And they were not going the right way before Iran. But the gas part of it is, is significantly exacerbated after Iran."

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White House insiders fear Trump’s approval could hit the 'scary 20s'

With the United States' 2026 midterms only two and one-half months away, President Donald Trump continues to suffer from weak approval ratings in one poll after another — including 33 percent from Reuters and 35 percent from YouGov/The Economist. But according to Zeteo's Asawin Suebsaeng, Trump White House insiders fear that his approval ratings could sink even lower in the weeks ahead — and that he could become as unpopular as President Herbert Hoover in 1932.

Suebsaeng, in his First Draft column for Zeteo (founded by former MS NOW host Mehdi Hasan), argues, "I have seen a lot of you making the same complaint, and it goes something like this: 'Donald Trump is such a horrendous U.S. president on so many different personal and policy fronts. I know his poll numbers are garbage right now, but how is it even possible that he's consistently clinging to more than 30 percent favorability in the polling? What does a doddering fascist have to do to crack the 20s?'"

The Zeteo columnist continues, "Well, in today's 'First Draft,' I may have a surprise for you: You're not the only ones wondering that. Some very well-connected consultants and Trump whisperers are thinking about the scary 20s, too — and they're not pleased about it. Plus, Trump's DOJ opens yet another absurd but frightening front in his war on his enemies, and the Iran stalemate keeps on stalemating hard."

The burning question with Trump's approval ratings, according to Suebsaeng, is "how low can he go?"

Suebsaeng notes that a recent American Research Group poll found Trump's approval at 30 percent, although he cautions that ARG "doesn't have the reputation other pollsters do."

According to Suebsaeng, "'Republican support for Trump has fallen as Democrats hold a big lead among enthusiastic midterms voters,' said the Economist and YouGov, noting that 'about one-third (35 percent) of Americans strongly or somewhat approve of Donald Trump’s job performance as president.' Private polls commissioned by different organizations and arms of the Republican elite 'aren’t much better,' I'm told by an operative close to the White House who has knowledge of data causing a sustained bedwetting from much of the party that President Trump is going to drag them down hard in the critically important midterms. Of course, one leading cause of these through-the-floor numbers is Trump’s catastrophic war on Iran. The data, and common sense, tell you that."

Suebsaeng emphasizes that for all of his political vulnerabilities — from the Iran war to violent immigration ratings to the economy — Trump's approval ratings from major pollsters have stayed in the thirties, and he has avoided the twenties.

"No matter how unpopular Trump has grown since early 2025," Suebsaeng writes, "conventional wisdom has held that he likely has a floor in the low-to-mid 30s, willing to stick by him through practically anything.… Not that many months ago, it was hard, even for someone like me, to imagine Trump ever again hitting the 20s in a high-quality poll. However mean, horrifying, and pathetic the Trump-Vance administration got, their leader seemed stuck in the low-to-mid 30s, riding a personality cult and a diehard conservative base that loves him or refuses to give liberals the satisfaction of defecting…. But today, keeping every caveat possible in mind, it does appear Trump is trending lower than before, with signs of ever-so-slightly-increasing erosion at the margins of his base."

Suebsaeng continues, "At this point, it is a mistake to brush off the possibility that he could plunge deeper, especially if his Iran war drags on and takes the economy with it ... Trump blundering back into the high 20s in any reputable poll was a prospect that had some practically rolling their eyes in disbelief, as recently as January."

Back in 1932 during the Great Depression, the GOP suffered one of its worst humiliations in U.S. history when President Herbert Hoover suffered a colossal defeat at the hands of the Democratic nominee: New York State Gov. Franklin Delano Roosevelt. And a senior Trump administration official fears that in terms of popularity, Trump is sinking into Hoover territory.

The official, interviewed on condition of anonymity, told Suebsaeng, "He keeps saying he doesn't want to become Herbert Hoover but then can't stop acting like he wants to be Herbert Hoover. He really could sink to the high 20s, I think. I would not have thought that last year."

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Ex-GOP strategist predicts how much lower Trump’s approval will sink

President Donald Trump's approval ratings hit new lows in recent weeks, but as one former GOP leader and strategist explained, there are signs indicating just how much lower it can still go.

Mike Madrid is a former GOP strategist and political director for the California Republican Party. A critic of Trump's takeover of the party, he helped co-found The Lincoln Project advocacy group and continues to speak out against the MAGA movement in various media appearances.

This week, he appeared as a guest for the latest edition of the "Fast Politics" podcast with host Molly Jong-Fast, and discussed the incredibly unpopular moves Trump is making, including his trade war with Canada and real war with Iran, as the midterms are fast approaching. Based on the recent poll results from various sources, Jong-Fast argued that there is "no historical precedent for a president that's unpopular in modern [times]." When she pressed Madrid about whether he was closer to George W. Bush after Hurricane Katrina or Richard Nixon just before his resignation, he agreed that "there aren't really historical parallels" for Trump's unpopularity.

Madrid further explained why the situation heading into the midterms continues to favor Democrats, based on the kinds of elections they have come to thrive in.

"Republicans, by their constitution now, are the beneficiaries of high turnout elections because their base has gotten less educated, less informed on issues, and less engaged, lower propensity, as we call them, in the trade," he explained. "Democrats have been winning these lower-turnout elections, which are midterms, and doing better, outperforming because their coalition has become more college-educated, more informed, and more, frankly, more rabid at the idea of getting rid of Donald Trump and the Republicans. So, it begins structurally advantaging Democrats, but then you add on the fact that literally nothing is going well for Trump and the Republicans."

Madrid noted that the poor environment for Republicans can be seen in the fact that Trump appears not to have over a 50 percent approval rating on any issue, giving them little to fall back on with voters. He also stressed the significance of the fact that the number of "people who believe the country is heading in the right direction is sitting at about 24, 25 [percent]."

"So there's a big gap between how people feel [about] what the country is doing, and who he is," Madrid said. "That's an even bigger warning sign, which means there's more floor to drop out as opposed to ceiling to rise."

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'We have a sick country': Conservative analyst unloads on MAGA

On Friday, a leading conservative political analyst revealed what he really thinks about President Donald Trump, the Republican Party, and their MAGA voters, declaring that Trump’s cultish following has resulted in a “sick country.” This is according to Tom Giovanetti, president of the prominent conservative think tank the Institute for Policy Innovation, who took to social media to share his ire toward his colleagues on the political right.

“Why do we have a lousy economy?” posted Giovanetti. “1. We have a lousy economy because we have a sick country. 2. We have a sick country because we tolerate a president focused on his hobbies, his enrichment and his pet peeves rather than his duties as president. 3. We have such a president because we have a Republican Congress more concerned about being known for their slavish devotion to said president than performing their duties as a legislature. 4. We have such a Congress because Republican primary voters are more slavishly devoted to the president than they are to the nation or to their children and grandchildren.”

Giovanetti included a final point, asking, “And ya’ll want me to vote for Ken Paxton?” This is in reference to MAGA senatorial candidate and current Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, a fierce Trump loyalist whose career and campaign have been characterized by fraud, bribery, obstruction of justice, and other scandals. Paxton is currently trailing behind Democratic candidate James Talarico, which has many on the right worried that the Texas seat could flip blue -- a situation that some conservatives forecasted when Trump-endorsed Paxton won his primary against Senator John Cornyn (R-TX), who they argued would be more broadly popular in the general election. Giovanetti has blamed the state GOP for the potential upset, "because the Texas Republican Party nominated Paxton, in full knowledge of all of his failings and deficiencies."

An outspoken critic of the Democrats as well as former Presidents Obama and Biden, Giovanetti can hardly be accused of being from the “communist” left as Trump so often labels those who challenge him. Giovanetti’s reference to the "lousy economy" comes on the heels of a “bleak” jobs report from the Labor Department, which found that the country shed 23,000 jobs in July while downgrading estimates for the previous two months by 100,000.

According to Navy Federal Chief Economist Heather Long, “This is a bleak jobs report. The U.S. labor market is stalling again and that is going to make the Federal Reserve’s job harder and life for job seekers rough. The big surprise was job losses in July. But that was only the beginning of the bad news. The unemployment rate fell for the wrong reasons. People continue to leave the labor force. Labor force participation is at the lowest level since February 2021. Even worse is that wage growth cooled to a mere 3.2 percent, the lowest level in five years. This is not what workers need as inflation soars again.”

“The ‘Golden Age’ is apparently a mirage,” snarked Andrew Eastmond of the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. “Who knew?”

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Bad news for Trump as voters in battleground states sour on GOP

A new survey shows that President Donald Trump’s disapproval rating has hit a new high in battleground states, with nearly three in five voters disapproving of his handling of the presidency. The survey also showed that voters in battleground states rate the economy poorly and disapprove of his handling of it, with independents in particular showing a dramatic shift toward disapproval.

The survey not only found that battleground states have soured on the economy, but that they disapprove of the economic situation more than safely blue or red states “by a wide margin.” In the year since Republicans passed Trump’s much vaunted Big Beautiful Bill budget, the overall rating of the economy has dropped by an average of seven points in battleground states.

The shift was driven largely by independent voters — the most essential bloc for a candidate looking to win toss-up states. Before the Big Beautiful Bill passed, independents were already underwater on the economy by -42 points. That has plunged to -65 points since then. At the same time, named GOP incumbents have gone from +6 to -30 with independents. And even among battleground Republicans, the approval rating has plummeted by 11 points.

This is bad news for Trump and the GOP, who face severe headwinds going into the midterm elections then the 2028 presidential election. Disapproval of Trump and the Republicans’ handling of the economy, the war with Iran, brutal deportation tactics, and the mishandling of the Epstein files have soured independents, and analysts project that the GOP will lose its majority in the House and is vulnerable to doing the same in the Senate. If the survey holds true, it not only suggests that the Republican Party will take major losses in the midterms, but that it is badly positioned for whoever ends up being its candidate in two years.

In response to the GOP’s electoral woes, Trump has been ramping up his demands for the passage of a voter ID law that critics say would disenfranchise millions of voters. He has fired all the members of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission tasked with overseeing election processes. And he has raised the volume on his claims that the 2020 election was stolen, and on Thursday will deliver a prime time address in which he is expected to declare its outcome illegitimate — a move that experts warn is an outright move toward authoritarianism.

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Disaster for Trump: Fox News warns of 'end days for GOP'

A pair of new polls revealed the true extent of the damage President Donald Trump has done to his party’s midterm chances, and according to one leading political reporter, it amounts to the “end days for GOP.”

This was the assessment of Punchbowl News founder Jake Sherman, who shared the two polls Thursday morning. One was from Fox News, which explained, "If the election were today, 53 percent of voters would back the Democratic candidate in their House district and 46 percent the Republican. That 7-point edge is just outside the poll’s margin of error. Democrats were up by 5 points in April. Notably, 53 percent is the highest percentage either party has received on the generic House ballot in Fox News polling since 1996."

As Sherman notes, that’s a “big gulf in the generic,” implying major angst toward the Republicans. But the Fox poll didn’t stop with the revelations there. As Fox elaborated, “President Donald Trump’s job approval remains near a record low, more Democrats are motivated to vote, Republicans join Democrats and independents in rating the economy negatively, and 4 in 10 voters want ‘dramatic" or "revolutionary’ change. Plus, more view the GOP as tied to elites than the Democratic Party.”

The news continues to get worse for Republicans from there. According to Fox, “Voters say Democrats can better handle income inequality (+22 points), healthcare (+21), inflation (+10), the economy (+9), and foreign policy (+7). Republicans hold the advantage on crime (+7 points), while government spending (Democrats +3) and national security (R +2) are more evenly divided. On immigration, the GOP had an 8-point edge in April. Now, Democrats are preferred by one point.” The number of those who say they face “severe” financial hardship due to inflation has shot up by 8 percent since last year, and 54 percent say they expect the economy to get worse in the coming year. What’s more, “when looking only at counties where the 2024 presidential vote was close — Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris within 10 points — the Democratic candidate leads by 59-41 percent.”

And all that bad news is coming from a source that tends to skew in Trump and the GOP’s favor. Set alongside another new poll from Emerson, which shows a whopping 11-point lead for Democrats on a generic ballot, and it becomes clear why Sherman is saying “that’s end days for GOP.”

All of this is very bad news for Republicans heading into the midterms, where even Fox admits their chances of losing the House majority are high. It also bodes poorly for the Republican presidential candidate in 2028, as voters are making it increasingly clear that they want major change.

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Trump reaches new low as he loses 'backbone' of his movement

On Wednesday, a new CNN poll revealed that President Donald Trump’s approval rating has cratered to a record low among his most essential support group: white people. As Newsweek notes, this demographic “has long formed the backbone of his electoral coalition,” and the fact that he’s losing white voters reflects the massive scale of the public’s “growing dissatisfaction” with his performance.

The poll found that Trump’s net approval among white voters has plunged to a historic low of -20, a major drop from the flat 0 net approval he held with white voters one year ago. What’s more, it showed that Trump’s overall approval rating has sunk to just 34 percent, matching the lowest point in his political career, which came just after the January 6th insurrection during the last days of his first term. But the new survey reveals that his standing is even worse than his previous low. While his approval rating is the same, his net approval is actually lower, falling to -32 points today versus the -28 he held just after J6.

According to Newsweek, “The difference is driven by higher disapproval. In the latest July 2026 survey, 66 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump's performance, compared with 62 percent in January 2021, meaning more voters now hold a negative view of the president than they did in the immediate fallout from the 2021 riot." Growing dissatisfaction with Trump has been caused by a range of issues, most notably his poor handling of the economy and the disastrous war with Iran, as well as a variety of highly visible domestic follies, from his mishandling of the Epstein files release to anger over brutal immigration crackdowns to his obsession with vanity projects.

The poll found that “a record-high 73 percent of Americans believe Trump has not paid enough attention to the country's most important problems, while just 27 percent said he has focused on the right priorities,” explains Newsweek. “Public frustration extended beyond policy disagreements. Around three-quarters of respondents said Trump is not in touch with the problems ordinary Americans face in their daily lives, while roughly two-thirds said he does not put the country's interests ahead of his personal gain. Only 27 percent described Trump as someone who understands the challenges facing ordinary Americans.”

What’s more, “just 25 percent approved of his handling of inflation, while only 21 percent approved of his management of gas prices. Approval of his handling of the situation in Iran stood at 28 percent…Roughly two-thirds of Americans believe Trump's policies have worsened economic conditions and that his military decisions relating to Iran have hurt the United States.”

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'Humiliation': Young MAGA voters explain why they’re ditching Trump

Young voters who cast for President Donald Trump in 2024 have delivered a dismal assessment of his second term, describing the “humiliation” they’ve experienced due to his policies and behavior. This is according to a New York Times focus group, the findings of which were published on Friday and reveal growing anger among young MAGA voters who are disappointed by his performance.

“We’re a humiliation across the world in terms of foreign policy,” said Zachary, a 25-year-old scientist from Missouri who voted for Trump two years ago. “The United States is not what it once was, and we can’t seem to drive costs down for the average American.”

According to the Daily Beast, “Zachary added that Trump’s second stint in the White House has left him completely disillusioned with the American Dream, telling the Times that the oft-cited mantra of ‘work hard, get ahead’ no longer holds true. ‘I feel like working hard and having a grinding mindset is more of the way to meet the bare minimum,’ Zachary said. ‘I’m always working. I’m doing stuff on my off time. And I can save exactly $120 every paycheck.’"

Caleb, a 24-year-old management consultant who lives in Maine, expressed similar sentiments, telling the Times, “When I see people working 60-plus hours a week in a trade and not able to make a dent in cost of living, it does feel like it’s gotten tougher, at least, to play by the rules.”

Both gave Trump a mere one out of five rating in regard to his second-term performance. As Zachary explained, “I’d say 1 mostly because I feel there’s a high level of corruption and a lack of transparency within this administration that I definitely either didn’t see or didn’t notice in the first Trump term.” What’s more, said Zachary, “I feel like he wants to make it mostly a country for people that are already well off. Most of the policy that comes down isn’t benefiting 80 percent to 90 percent of Americans.”

Caleb noted that “it’s hard for me to look at the status quo and not see it as objectively worse when it comes to policy,” asserting that the changes he’s seen have primarily been “reactive to other issues that were caused during the administration.” In other words, Trump keeps having to put out the fires he himself has lit.

Caleb said he would urge Trump to “focus on sustainable change,” while Zachary says the president “needs to be working more for the working-class, average American, rather than being concerned with his own image.”

Trump’s job assessment wasn’t much better among those who rated him higher. Kim, a 25-year-old medical scribe from Virginia who rated Trump two out of five said that “nothing seems affordable or feasible right now” and that “the way that he’s acting has just been disappointing.” Christian, a 25-year-old curriculum adviser from Tennessee, gave the president three out of five, but noted that Trump “forgets about certain people in different tax brackets” and that he “makes decisions for maybe wealthier people in the front of his mind.”

The results of the focus group come as recent polling shows Trump’s approval has plunged to -45 among Gen-Z voters.

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Busted: Paramount gave FCC officials gifts while seeking approval for billion-dollar deal

The rich and famous who filed into the Kennedy Center’s opera house in December were there to enjoy one of the nation’s most exclusive celebrations of the performing arts: the center’s annual honors gala.

The black-tie event, hosted by President Donald Trump, prioritized tickets to people who donated more than $75,000 to the center. This year, it feted Hollywood icon Sylvester Stallone, the legendary glam rock band Kiss and the Grammy Award-winning disco pioneer Gloria Gaynor.

Among the attendees that evening were two lower-profile government officials whose regulatory decisions had been crucial to the future of the gala’s broadcast sponsor, CBS, and its parent company, Paramount.

Five months earlier, Federal Communications Commissioner Olivia Trusty cast a decisive vote approving Paramount’s historic $8 billion merger with Skydance Media. Now, the commissioner and a guest enjoyed the star-studded celebration thanks to tickets gifted to her by Paramount worth more than $12,000, according to ethics disclosure records obtained by ProPublica.

The other commissioner who approved the merger watched from a prized perch. FCC Chair Brendan Carr and his wife sat in a private skybox with Paramount CEO David Ellison and other executives from Paramount and CBS. Such seats sold for $125,000 a ticket, according to Kennedy Center guidelines.

It’s unclear if Paramount gifted Carr the premium seats because the FCC has yet to make public his financial disclosure for last year.

However, past disclosures show Carr and Trusty are among seven FCC commissioners who have accepted Kennedy gala tickets from CBS or its parent company over the last decade. Ethics experts told ProPublica this poses a blatant conflict of interest since the commission regulates the network. Carr’s previous financial statements show he has accepted tickets at least seven times since his 2017 appointment, totaling over $63,000 in gifts.

Last December’s ceremony attended by Trusty and Carr took place as Paramount was launching a hostile takeover bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, a move that would later result in a merger agreement that requires FCC approval.

Federal ethics rules ban employees from taking gifts from any entity that does business with, is regulated by or seeks official action from their agency.

Four ethics experts told ProPublica that by accepting the premium tickets Trusty and Carr compromised the FCC’s impartiality and should not take part in any upcoming decision on the merger.

“There’s no way that any top federal regulator should ever, ever accept a gift from a regulated company with interests their work will foreseeably affect,” said Walter Shaub, who led the federal Office of Government Ethics from 2013 to 2017. “The appearance of taking gifts like that is terrible. What’s at stake is nothing less than the public’s trust in government.”

Virginia Canter, who served as an ethics lawyer at the White House, Treasury Department, and Securities and Exchange Commission during the presidencies of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, said the commissioners who accepted tickets cannot participate in this matter without damaging the integrity of the government’s decision-making process.

“This is shocking. Pretty disturbing, that’s what I would say. I just don’t understand what they were thinking,” said Canter, who now works as chief counsel for ethics and corruption at the nonpartisan government watchdog group Democracy Defenders Fund.

The FCC’s review of the merger is one of the final hurdles facing a historic $110 billion consolidation of two of the five largest film studios in Hollywood. The deal would unite Paramount Skydance with Warner Bros., bringing under the control of one company Paramount+ and HBO Max streaming services; CBS and CNN; and scores of other major broadcast channels, cable networks, and digital platforms.

The new megacorporation, which could reshape how millions will access news, movies, sports and video games, faces fierce opposition from inside and outside Hollywood. More than 5,000 actors, producers and entertainment workers — including stars such as Robert De Niro, Javier Bardem, Joaquin Phoenix and Glenn Close — signed an open letter decrying how the consolidation would eliminate jobs and compromise “the integrity, independence, and diversity of our industry.”

On Monday, California, New York and 10 other Democratic states filed a lawsuit seeking to block the merger under federal and state anti-monopoly laws.

American and international regulators are evaluating the deal for its potential national security implications and impacts to consumers worldwide. Last week, the British government signaled it planned to investigate whether the new entertainment titan that would emerge from the union would unfairly stifle competition. The FCC’s ongoing review includes examining the Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds backing the deal, including from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Abu Dhabi.

The FCC usually has five commissioners — all appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate to serve five-year terms — but the agency currently has only three. Any vote by the full commission would likely be decided by Republicans Carr and Trusty over Democrat Anna Gomez. Gomez was not at the December 2025 show but has accepted tickets from Paramount in the past. Because the FCC requires a three-commissioner quorum for a vote, any recusal could leave the panel unable to decide on the merger. Carr could decide to ask staff to approve the deal rather than bring it to a commission vote, but the ethics experts said he should recuse himself from any decisions affecting the Paramount merger.

The experts warned the commissioners’ gifts might become central in legal challenges and said the Justice Department should investigate potential violations of federal rules or laws.

Neither Carr nor Trusty responded to ProPublica’s requests for comment. Gomez said in a statement that she followed agency advice when she attended the event in 2023 and 2024. Her statement did not elaborate or otherwise address why taking gifts from Paramount did not pose a conflict of interest.

An FCC spokesperson said agency ethics officers have for years cleared commissioner appearances, finding it consistent with ethics law.

“FCC Chairs and officials have attended the same event, in the same ways, consistently from the Trump Administration to the Biden Administration to the Obama Administration,” the FCC said in a statement. “There has been no change in recent years.”

Shaub called the justification outrageous.

“It’s no excuse to say that you took the gift because everyone else was doing it or that your agency has had a bad habit of indulging in gift taking for a long time,” Shaub said. “That kind of explanation doesn’t work for school children, and it sure as hell doesn’t work for government officials who are supposed to have better judgment than a fifth grader.”

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