Trump melts down as Republicans wake up to stunning policy reversals

In 2024, Donald Trump accomplished something that was unprecedented in U.S. history by winning a presidential election despite facing four criminal indictments (one of which found him convicted on 34 counts) and having been impeached twice. But according to liberal journalist Molly Jong-Fast, Trump is now suffering a major political meltdown thanks to blatantly breaking his core 2024 campaign promises.

Interviewed by host Greg Sargent — a former Washington Post columnist — for The New Republic's podcast, "The Daily Blast," Jong-Fast argued that there is no way a politician can break the main campaign promises that got him elected and not suffer for it politically. Trump, according to Jong-Fast, has demonstrated an ability to "defy political gravity," but that isn't enough to overcome the political abyss he is now falling into after doing the very things he promised he wouldn't.

"Eventually, we're going to see another spike in gas prices," Jong-Fast told Sargent. "And what is the number that kills the Republican Party? Is it $6 gas? Is it $7 gas? I mean, that's really the question. These are people who voted for Trump on two things: Trump said he's going to make things cheaper, he's going to stop having foreign wars. So, he's had a foreign war that's made things more expensive…. There's no historical precedent for a guy who gets elected and just does exactly the opposite of what he's going to say…. And Trump has had this thing where he can defy political gravity, but he wasn't — I mean, the one thing I would say is he was defying his own gravity. Like he got indicted, but he was still popular."

Jong-Fast continued, "But he wasn't defying actual political gravity like inflation. And that's what we're seeing now — the nuts and bolts of wheat prices and beef prices and the prices from the tariffs, the trade wars, that stuff is real political gravity, and he doesn't have an answer for it. Even a really skilled politician would suffer with this."

Two major advantages that Trump has had politically, according to Jong-Fast, are "charisma and an ability to communicate." But neither, the journalist said, will erase widespread frustration over high prices and the war with Iran.

"It's one thing to run for office and say: I'm going to do this, and then not be able to do it — but at least you're sort of trying," Jong-Fast told Sargent. "I mean, that was the (Joe) Biden story, right?..... This is like: I'm going to make things cheaper — whoops, no, I'm just doing whatever I want. So instead, I'm going to build a triumphal arch in the middle of Washington D.C. This sort of Marie Antoinette-style governing, while your people are going to food banks and can't afford to fill up their cars. There's a number where that just becomes toxic politics for the Republicans."