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President Donald Trump delivers remarks during a meeting with cryptocurrency executives in the Roosevelt Room of the White House in Washington, D.C., on Aug. 19, 2026.
(Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images/TCA)
Has Donald Trump lost his golden touch?
Aug 22, 2026
On Tuesday night, Darline Graham, sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, revealed somewhat awkwardly that she is entirely unprepared to be a U.S. senator.
At a South Carolina debate, she was asked a perfectly reasonable and straightforward question: “Are Taiwan and the South China Sea national security issues for the United States?” And, “If so, why?”
She sheepishly responded, “I’m just going to be honest here — I’m not on national security. I’m not that informed on national security, but I do support the military.”
That response — admitting there’s an entire and extremely important category of public policy and governing responsibility that she just doesn’t know — would be humiliating for any Senate candidate, but it was worse considering her brother’s personal interest and commitment to it.
It was also another reminder that President Trump, who has lent considerable support to her candidacy, doesn’t care about qualifications, expertise, or even electability when he backs candidates for public office. All that matters is loyalty.
This is not news. Whether it was his ill-fated support of scandal-ridden Senate candidates Herschel Walker and Roy Moore in 2022 and 2017 respectively, or of current scandal-ridden candidates Ken Paxton and Max Miller, Trump has endorsed some truly awful candidates, often betting that his word alone would be enough to push them across the finish line.
Walker and Moore excluded, he’s had a lot of success, to be sure, and in many cases his support was in fact what propelled otherwise lackluster or problematic candidates to victory. But this primary season has seen a mixed bag for Trump, begging the question of whether his golden touch has lost some of its shine — especially as his approval sinks to an abysmal 32%.
A string of recent losses show voters aren’t entirely sold on Trump’s vision for the next two years.
This week, scandal-ridden Rep. Cory Mills lost his primary in Florida, as did Catalina Lauf.
Megan Degenfelder lost her bid for governor in Wyoming, while election-denier Mike Lindell lost his primary for governor in Minnesota by 11 points.
Earlier this month, Trump-backed gubernatorial candidates in Iowa and Georgia also lost, as did his first pick for governor of South Carolina.
Altogether, 10 Trump-endorsed candidates have lost their primaries, which are as many losses as Trump saw in 2018, 2020, and 2024 combined. One more loss and he’ll tie his worst record for endorsements, in 2022.
With the fight over the majority at stake, it seems an odd year to be so capricious and reckless with his influence, but capricious and reckless he’s been.
In Texas, Trump endorsed Paxton, whose 20-year record of scandals, including a felony securities fraud indictment and an impeachment by his own party, baffles the mind when the well-liked incumbent John Cornyn was also on the ballot.
In Ohio, Miller has been accused by his ex-wife and father-in-law, Sen. Bernie Moreno, of spousal and child abuse, and yet Trump has not demanded he step down. The White House even reportedly pressured Ohio Republicans to lay off Miller.
In the hotly-watched races where Trump’s picks have lost, it means Republican primary voters in red states like Iowa, Florida, and Wyoming — in other words, Trump’s base — are either tuning Trump out or proactively voting against his candidates. Both scenarios are bad for Republicans, especially in the cases where his more controversial candidates, like Paxton and Miller, have to run in a general election.
We know Trump’s lost massive support among independents, young voters, Hispanics, and other coalitions from 2024. But if he can’t turn his base out for his candidates as reliably as he once did, well add it to the pile of reasons Democrats feel pretty good about these midterms — and hope he keeps backing all the bad contenders he wants.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
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President Donald Trump walks off of Air Force One at Newark Liberty International Airport on Aug. 7, 2026, in Newark, New Jersey.
(Eric Lee/Getty Images/TCA)
Donald Trump’s Third World presidency
Aug 15, 2026
In October 1980, then-candidate Ronald Reagan asked voters a very important question: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?”
It was during the only televised debate he had against incumbent President Jimmy Carter, whose presidency had been marred by one crisis after another, from record-high inflation and rising unemployment, to soaring gas prices and the Iran hostage crisis.
Reagan knew the answer to his question was a resounding “no,” and asking it helped propel him to a landslide victory. It also became a regularly-invoked rhetorical feature of presidential campaigns going forward.
No one knows the cautionary tale of Carter’s presidency more than our current president, who has repeatedly used it as a stand-in for presidential failure and American weakness. Although Carter’s legacy greatly improved in the years since leaving office, he ended his only term with a bleak 34% approval rating.
Donald Trump currently sits at an abysmal 32%, according to Quinnipiac’s latest polling, and likely for many of the same reasons Carter finished where he did, ironically — high inflation, rising gas prices, and a foreign policy crisis in Iran.
So, the question of whether voters are better off than they were two years ago isn’t hard to answer for most — in January of this year just 28% said they were better off than they were a year ago, and in July that number had dropped to 19%.
And it’s no wonder — when you move beyond the economic numbers, which are bad enough, the picture of Trump’s America gets worse and worse with every peak behind the MAGA curtain.
In fact, it can feel at times like America has become a Third World country.
Case in point, the U.S. is in the midst of a measles outbreak, with more cases than it’s seen in more than three decades, thanks to the administration’s vaccine misinformation. We are now at risk of losing our official measles elimination status, which we’ve held for more than a quarter century.
We’re also facing no fewer than 11 foodborne illness outbreaks, including two separate cyclospora outbreaks, as well as outbreaks of listeria, salmonella and E. coli, all since Trump downsized oversight agencies, dropped food-facility inspections, and stripped back mandatory reporting requirements at the federal Foodborne Diseases Active Surveillance Network.
Trump’s dumb war in Iran has depleted American munitions significantly — up to 80% in some categories — straining stockpiles and raising readiness concerns. And there are new reports of sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln, deployed to the North Arabian Sea since November, desperately jumping overboard amidst poor conditions — from clogged toilets to mildewed showers, food supply problems to mental health concerns.
This is America — the superpower? Where college grads can’t find work, where housing is unaffordable for 75% of the population, where families must choose between paying rent or paying doctors bills? Where you can be shot dead for peacefully protesting? Where your government is shuttering important health agencies while spewing junk science about autism and Tylenol? Where our allies are skeptical of us and our enemies no longer seem to fear us?
While Trump fiddles with reflecting pools, golden statues and ballrooms, it feels like America is burning, becoming less and less formidable and functional with every passing day.
And Republicans are asking for two more years of control of it all. Who could possibly want more of this?
Upon the occasion of Carter’s 100th birthday in October 2024, Trump did what Trump does — and insulted him. But only to insult former President Joe Biden worse, saying Carter was happy because he “is considered a brilliant president by comparison.”
Just think what they’ll say about Trump — overseeing all of this chaos, destruction, corruption and incompetence. “Are you better off?” Are you kidding?
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
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President Trump has moved the GOP left on abortion right, trade and industrial policy over his two terms.
(Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images/TNS)
The GOP isn’t always the best party for conservatives
Aug 14, 2026
I often get asked for my advice on how to vote. I’m the first to concede these requests come from a very niche slice of the electorate — that tiny remnant of people who know who I am, value my opinion and share my exasperation with both parties.
I am going to answer the question. But first let me explain why I don’t like it.
I think too many pundits on the left and right fall into the habit of confusing or conflating the fortunes of a party with that of their philosophy. Many come by this tendency honestly. As the parties have polarized ideologically, it’s a natural assumption to think that the GOP and Democrats are the sole vessels for conservatism and progressivism, respectively.
Add in the very human tendency to favor the politicians who return your phone calls and seek your approval, and that rooting interest can get even more intense.
One problem with this approach — and there are many — is that what is best for the GOP in an election year is not necessarily what is best for conservatism in the long run. The same goes for the Democrats and progressivism.
For instance, on many issues — abortion, trade, industrial policy, etc. — President Trump has moved the GOP leftward over his two terms. But just try telling most Republicans in 2016, 2020 or 2024 that a Republican victory would be bad for conservatism.
President Obama wanted a very progressive agenda, and he got some of it. He also cost his party roughly a thousand elected offices across his two terms, and left behind a political climate that made the Trump presidency possible (and which erased many of Obama’s executive orders). President Biden left his cause and his party in an even uglier ditch.
The point isn’t about political point-scoring. It’s simply to note that ideological and intellectual progress — however you define progress — doesn’t move in lockstep with electoral success or failure. In his 1996 State of the Union address, President Clinton declared that “the era of big government is over” and moved rightward on welfare reform. This was a victory for conservatism and a political loss for Republicans, because his triangulation got Clinton reelected.
Single-issue activists often understand this logic better than generic ideologues or partisans do. The last thing abortion rights activists want is for antiabortion Democrats to become a major faction, just as antiabortion advocates don’t want Republicans who support abortion rights to gain political traction. But the same activists would love to see the other party move in their direction — because the goal isn’t to use the issue of abortion as a wedge issue or for fundraising, but to forge a bipartisan consensus.
That’s how I think about the proper goal of the “conservative movement” — to move America’s center of gravity rightward, not just the GOP’s. Put simply, conservatives should celebrate when conservative Democrats are nominated, even if that’s bad for Republicans electorally.
I also believe that candidates who discredit or deform conservatism by claiming to be conservative should lose.
Which brings me to my advice. I think that voters should be more interested in rewarding good behavior and good character than in ideological or partisan purity. That doesn’t mean ideology and partisanship are irrelevant. I think these things can be balanced.
Take the Senate race in Texas. Democrat James Talarico is ideologically not my cup of tea, and he is quite far to the left for Texas. But his Republican opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, is in my view a corrupt gargoyle simply unfit for any office. I’m not here to debate that opinion, because the people seeking my advice generally share it.
So, if you’re a conservative who thinks Talarico is too left-wing and Paxton is bat-winged, don’t vote for either of them.
But you should still vote.
You can leave the Senate line blank while voting for other Republicans on the ballot (you can also select Libertarian candidate Ted Brown). Sending the message that your problem is Paxton, not Republicans, is one that Republicans and conservatives need to hear.
If I were a progressive, I would have the same approach toward candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America who will hurt either the party or the cause. Vote for all the other Democrats, just not the radicals who spout the sort of nonsense that turns off more mainstream voters than they attract.
One reason our politics are such a mess is that fringe candidates know they can count on the reflexive support of their parties — and their pundits! — the moment they get the nomination. Strategically voting to end that dynamic is not inconsistent with the best interests of your ideological cause or your party, because those interests are often in tension in an election year.
Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.
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A golden tray sits on the Resolute Desk as President Donald Trump speaks during an announcement on American nuclear innovation in the Oval Office at the White House on July 24, 2026, in Washington, D.C. Trump is signing multiple executive orders targeting the nuclear energy sector and easing rules for new reactors and nuclear fuel supply chains.
Trump’s hubris rivals the fallen heroes of ancient Greek mythology
In January, the New York Times asked President Donald Trump if there were any limits on his global powers.
“Yeah,” the president responded, “there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
That was eight months ago, but fortunately Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation of “The Odyssey” has made ancient Greek literature newly relevant. Before that window closes, I’d like to talk about hubris.
Today, the term mostly means excessive pride or arrogance. That’s part of what the Greeks meant by it too, but the meaning was a bit richer and more specific. Hubris was an insolent or outrageous act that offended the gods, often because the transgressor was claiming abilities or authorities that solely belonged to supreme beings.
Nolan renamed and slightly modified the concept of xenia for the film, calling it “Zeus’ law.” In the director’s telling, mortals should follow the rules laid out by the gods, specifically the requirement to treat strangers with respect lest they be gods in disguise.
In a sense, hubris is the opposite, or at least the rejection, of xenia. The hubris of the suitors, and at times Odysseus himself, invites punishment by the gods and their mortal instruments.
Which brings me back to Donald Trump. His claim that there are no constraints on his personal power to dictate events on the global stage was one of the greatest expressions of hubris ever uttered by a political leader.
Trump’s claim was obviously false when he made it.
He vowed that he could end the Russia-Ukraine war in 24 hours. He’s proved powerless to make that happen. If he had divine powers to work his will, why would he have balked at implementing his tariffs so often that Wall Street adopted the “TACO trade” term for his deals? “TACO” stands for “Trump always chickens out.”
And why would Trump have made so many embarrassing concessions to China — from rescinding tariffs on Chinese goods to allowing them to buy crucial and incredibly valuable computer chips?
But Trump saw his success at capturing Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro as proof of his ability to launch missiles to the same effect as Zeus’ lightning bolts. Trump believed he was the most powerful man who ever lived.
This is no exaggeration. In March, when the Iran invasion seemed successful, Trump gave a document penned by“Presidential Historian David King” to New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan purporting to prove that Trump was “the most powerful person to have EVER walked this planet.” King was, in fact, a businessman and occasional caddy for legendary golfer Gary Player.
King compared Trump favorably to many of history’s most powerful, and often heinous, figures: Alexander the Great, Attila the Hun, William the Conqueror, Napoleon Bonaparte, Joseph Stalin, Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung, Adolf Hitler and Vladimir Lenin. Many of these men thought they were the most powerful person in the world, too. And many were defeated precisely because they believed it.
At least Napoleon and Hitler had a string of truly impressive victories before they learned the folly of hubris. The limits on Trump’s power have been exposed by far less august forces than the combined might of the allies in World War II or the fearsome Russian winter.
Iran is a comparatively middling power. But the regime’s ability to absorb punishment while imposing its will on the Strait of Hormuz has proved to be a greater constraint on Trump’s power than his morality or mind. We should note that, at least rhetorically, his morality has not proved much of a constraint. He has repeatedly promised to destroy Iranian “civilization” if the regime refuses to capitulate.
But they haven’t — and won’t anytime soon — because the regime’s tolerance for pain far outstrips Trump’s. The combined fear of skyrocketing oil prices, outrage of Gulf state potentates, diminishing weapon supplies and domestic unpopularity is doing the work that international law, congressional oversight and the collective opinion of foreign policy experts can’t or won’t do.
If I considered Trump more heroic than reason and facts could allow, I would say his Sisyphean predicament has the whiff of Greek tragedy to it. Trump is vexed by the fact that the Iranians won’t honor deals or ratify his countless premature claims of victory — giving new meaning to his vow that his presidency would make people tired of winning. It’s almost like they’re out-Trumping Trump.
Things might have gone better if he’d heeded that great Greek tragedian Sophocles: “For Zeus utterly abhors the boasts of a proud tongue.”
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Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.