It's been a while since we saw a lame duck presidency — long enough in politics to maybe forget what one looks like.
In October 2014, President Barack Obama hit his lowest approval rating yet at 40%. The midterm elections were an absolute bloodbath for Democrats — Republicans expanded their majority in the House by 13 seats and took control of the Senate with a gain of nine seats.
The predictions for the second half of Obama’s second term were fatalistic. As early as 2013, analysts were calling his presidency DOA, having seemingly spent all of his political capital on getting the Affordable Care Act passed and implemented, which didn’t go smoothly. He suffered early second-term losses on the Bush-era tax cuts, gun control efforts, and immigration reform.
There was just nothing left in the tank. Or so it seemed.
But Obama defied those predictions. In 2015, he got a huge win when the Supreme Court — in a surprise from conservative Chief Justice John Roberts — ruled in favor of keeping Obamacare intact, preserving his signature legislation.
Then, the ambitious Trans Pacific Partnership deal, the world’s biggest ever trade agreement accounting for two-fifths of trade, got fast-tracked by a highly divided Congress.
He got another win in Cuba, where he secured an agreement to resume diplomatic relations after 54 years of hostilities. And he signed an Iran nuclear deal designed to prevent Iran from developing nukes in exchange for sanction relief.
Whatever you think of Obamacare, the TPP, and the Cuba and Iran deals, it’s hard to argue Obama’s final months in office were very “lame.” In as little as a year, he’d redefined the meaning of the term.
We know how much Obama tends to get in Donald Trump’s head. As the legend goes, after all, it was Obama’s mockery of Trump at the 2011 White House Correspondents’ Dinner that provoked him to run for president. Ever since, he’s been fixated on the ex chief, even blasting his Chicago presidential library with petty jabs in recent months.
Well, Trump only wishes he were having the final few years that Obama did. Instead, it seems, Trump’s lame-duck presidency has arrived early.
Trump’s approval has plummeted since his inauguration, dropping from 52% to 38%, while his disapproval has shot up 15 points.
Thanks in large part to his dumb tariffs and dumb war in Iran, the midterms are looking so bad for Republicans, the party’s resorted to mid-census redistricting schemes that may or may not pay off. Democrats could not only take back the House but win the Senate, with candidates in red states like Texas, Iowa and Ohio in real contention.
Then there are his recent losses. A lot of them.
The $1.8 billion slush fund to pay out MAGA loyalists, including Jan. 6 insurrectionists, was met with such disdain from his own party, he had to dump it.
Four Republicans in the House just voted with Democrats to pass a war powers resolution directing Trump to withdraw military forces from Iran.
Republicans in both chambers have come out to condemn Trump’s utterly absurd pick for director of national intelligence, Bill Pulte.
The fate of his billion-dollar ballroom remains up in the air, as do the “Trump battleships” he’s proposed. A judge ruled he cannot put his name on the Kennedy Center, and his Freedom 250 concert series collapsed as musical acts dropped out one by one, leaving Vanilla Ice to headline, if it happens at all.
These are some humiliating losses. And the crazy part is, had Trump pursued “normal” policy wins for Americans instead of the insane, vulgar, and self-interested nonsense he has, he’d surely be in a different position.
But he didn’t. Welcome to your lame duck, era, Mr. President.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.
Americans across the political spectrum have continued to ask about the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s connections among the political elite. (Angela Weiss/AFP)
Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Graham Platner speaks to voters at a town hall at the Elks Lodge 188 on June 7, 2026, in Portland, Maine.
McConnell and Platner both feel entitled
The two men could not be more different. One, a Republican, octogenarian, seven-term Southern senator, the other a progressive, millennial Maine oysterman who’s never spent a day in elected office.
But Mitch McConnell, the senior senator from Kentucky who’s been MIA for the past few weeks and Graham Platner, the Maine Senate candidate who’s facing calls to drop out of his race against Sen. Susan Collins, apparently do have something in common: an outsized sense of entitlement.
McConnell, who is 84 and not running for reelection, has been hospitalized for three weeks, and yet we still don’t fully know what he was admitted for or what his condition is. Per CNN, “his office has not disclosed a medical reason for the hospitalization or provided specifics on his health status beyond saying last week that he ‘continues to improve’ and ‘is working closely with his staff on Kentucky and Senate matters.’ ”
While several legislators have said they’ve talked to him and insist he sounds strong, others have said they are completely in the dark. One MAGA influencer, Laura Loomer, posted ”High level source close to the White House tells me ‘Mitch McConnell is officially brain dead. He’s not coming back.’ ”
Meanwhile, up in Maine, Platner has been artfully dodging calls from his own party to drop out of his race after several allegations of misconduct from women, including a sexual assault allegation from a former girlfriend, came to light. While Platner, who has managed to survive a Nazi-tattoo scandal, a sexting scandal, and several old tweets scandals, denies the allegations, he has not quit.
High-profile Democrats including Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer, the latter of whom had unsuccessfully hand-selected Maine Gov. Janet Mills to face Collins instead of Platner, have urged Platner to drop out, while other Dems have accused him of trying to influence the picking of his replacement.
Maine Democratic Party Executive Director Devon Murphy-Anderson released a statement Tuesday, which said in part:
“Unfortunately, Graham Platner’s team has repeatedly reached out to us in an attempt to put their thumb on the scale of what this process looks like. We have repeatedly reiterated to Graham Platner’s team that they have no role in determining our next Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate nor in determining what this process looks like.”
Both incidents show a deep lack of accountability to voters, who in one case deserve to know whether their senator is capable of performing his duties, and in another deserve a candidate who isn’t being accused of crimes, bigotry and deception.
The offensive and odious entitlement of both McConnell and Platner stands out not because it is particularly unique among today’s political class. Tom Kean, the New Jersey GOP congressman, missed more than 100 votes, only sharing after a three-month mystery absence that he was dealing with depression.
Former President Joe Biden’s Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin failed to disclose a hospitalization for prostate cancer surgery, flouting the established rules for Cabinet members and senior U.S. officials.
From Biden’s insistence on running for reelection despite his obvious cognitive and political weaknesses to Trump’s brazen flouting of laws and norms, few politicians seem to appreciate that their public service job comes with responsibilities to constituents, including transparency and honesty.
But both parties increasingly justify the chicanery, because the stakes of winning elections and keeping power are simply too high. But that’s no excuse. If we’ve learned anything over the past decade, it’s that character and accountability do, in fact, matter. And when we, the voters, stop caring about it, well, so do they.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.