Trump took to the airwaves this morning, spouting a torrent of untruths in lengthy and increasingly unhinged rants
Mikey Smith is the Mirror’s Deputy Political Editor (Sunday), based in Westminster
Donald Trump has returned from another weekend of golf – and jumped straight into a day of lies, falsehoods and being weird about young women.
Not satisfied with firing the head of a government body that delivered some statistics he didn’t like, Trump took to the airwaves this morning, spouting a torrent of untruths in lengthy and increasingly unhinged rants.
Also, he’s being weird about Sydney Sweeney in perhaps the most predictable turn of events in his Presidency so far.
It comes after he made a major change to the White House that people are very upset about.
Here’s everything that’s happened in Trump World in the last 24 hours that you need to know about.
Deep breaths, we’re going in.
READ MORE: Donald Trump made a major change to the White House and people are furiousREAD MORE: Nigel Farage ‘fanning flames of hatred’ with ‘dangerous’ claims of ‘cover-up’
1. Donald Trump keeps telling you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears
Trump is still fuming about those job numbers that were published on Friday.
You remember, the ones that were so bad that Trump decided to shoot the messenger and fire the head of the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS).
Erika McEntarfer was confirmed as commissioner of the BLS last year, with the Senate voting in favour by 86 to 8.
She was a credible, career public servant who just happened to have been hired during the Biden administration.
And because Trump didn’t like the numbers her organisation announced on Friday, he smeared her as a political operative and accused her baselessly of essentially committing fraud.
He claimed the numbers were “RIGGED in order to make the Republicans and ME, look bad.”
And on the tarmac at Allentown airfield in Pennsylvania, as he switched between Marine One and Air Force One, Trump indicated he was still fuming.
“The numbers were ridiculous, that she announced…it’s a scam, in my opinion. In my opinion it’s just additional scam.”
2. Trump has some thoughts about Sydney Sweeney
You will be delighted to learn that 79-year-old convicted felon and, according to a New York Court, sex abuser Donald Trump has some thoughts about 27 year old actor Sydney Sweeney.
It follows the definitely not confcted discourse carnage after she featured in an American Eagle advert with the slogan “Sydney Sweeney has great genes”.
While people were working out whether the ads were a bit Nazi, or just thirsty, someone looked her up and found she was a registered Republican.
Well, someone told Trump that during a huddle on the tarmac and he was…pleased.
“She’s a registered Republican?” he said.
“Ohhh, now I love her ad. Is that right? Is Sydney Sweeney? I wouldn’t have known, but I’m glad you told me that.
“If Sydney Sweeney is a registered Republican, I think her ad is fantastic.”
He went on to describe the ad as “the “HOTTEST” ad out there” on Truth Social, and compared it to the “TOTAL DISASTER” of Jaguar’s “WOKE” rebrand.
Then, for some reason he brought up Taylor Swift.
“Just look at Woke singer Taylor Swift. Ever since I alerted the world as to what she was by saying on TRUTH that I can’t stand her (HATE!). She was booed out of the Super Bowl and became NO LONGER HOT”
None of these things are true.
3. Democrats flee Texas so Trump can’t rig the midterms
Meanwhile, Democrats in Texas have literally fled the state to avoid Trump’s Republicans re-drawing the constituency map to rig the mid-term elections.
The Republican-dominated House was unable to establish the quorum of lawmakers required to do business.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has made threats about removing members who are absent from their seats.
And the House quickly issued civil arrest warrants for absent Democrats and Abbott ordered state troopers to help find and arrest them, but lawmakers physically outside Texas are beyond the jurisdiction of state authorities.
Trump, calling into CNBC this morning, was pretty straightforward about what the aim of the gerrymandering is.
“We have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats…” He said.
“I got the highest vote in the history of Texas as you probably know. And we are entitled to five more seats.”
4. Obama and co to face a Grand Jury
Trump is delighted to hear that a Grand Jury will be set up to consider the harebrained conspiracy nonsense the Justice Department keep pumping out making unsubstantiated claims of election interference and manufacturing intelligence, neither of which are actually crimes.
Even if they found a crime to claim was committed – say, obstruction of justice – the statute of limitations is 5 years on that, so they’d be SOL with that too.
It’s almost like this isn’t actually about indictments and prosecutions, and all about trying to steal news cycles away from Jeffrey Epstein.
Either way, Trump is delighted.
“You’ve talked how you want success, not retribution,” CNBC host Joe Kernan said, incredibly charitably.
“The DOJ is now tapping a grand jury to look into the intelligence community’s assessment of what was happening with Russia.
“You have nothing to do with directing that?”
“Nope,” Trump replied. “I have nothing to do with it. I will tell you this, they deserve it. I was happy to hear it.”
5. ‘We can’t relitigate that’
In the same interview, Trump repeatedly lied about the 2020 election being “rigged”, which countless court cases and investigations have proved it was not.
Still, the best Kernan could do was to tell the President: “We can’t relitigate that”.
6. Trump says he’d “like to run again”
Trump said (again) that he got the highest numbers in the history of Texas – adding: “A record that won’t be beat unless I run again…”
Asked if he was going to run again, which would be illegal, Trump said: “No…probably not.”
Of course, he couldn’t just leave that hanging.
“I’d like to…” He added.
7. …and he keeps lying about his numbers – even when challenged
Then he went into an unhinged (and entirely untrue) rant about how his numbers are the best he’s ever had, and that his approval is up in the 70s.
“I have the best poll numbers I ever had,” he said.
Kernen, to his credit, corrected the President, saying his numbers are only good “among Republicans”.
“No. I’m talking about generally,” Trump insisted.
Kernen (sigh)… said: “Your haters cite polls that have you down in the 30s.”
To be clear, it’s not just the “haters” who have Trump down in the 30s. It’s people who are at all interested in facts and reality.
“They’re fake polls,” Trump retorted. “You also have me in the 70s.”
He also went on at length about a segment CNN analyst Harry Enten presented a day earlier, where he “went crazy about how well Trump was doing.”
The segment he was referring to – which has generated a huge number of complaints to CNN – saw Enten declare Trump “the most influential President” this century.
Didn’t say anything about his poll numbers, though.
So where are Trump’s numbers?
Well, according to The New York Times’ poll of polls, he’s averaging 44%, which is the second worst of any President at this point in their term. Who was the worst? He was, in his first term.
Is he less popular than Joe Biden? You bet he is. On Day 198 of his presidency, Biden was +9 approve. Trump is +9 disapprove.
And the most recent polls are pretty eye-watering.
YouGov’s poll, published today, sees Trump hit an astonishing +14 points net disapprove – with his approval on just 41%.
And another published this week by Leger had the same net +14 disapprove, with just 37% of those polled saying they approved of his performance.
