Trump sinks in polls ahead of State of the Union

19:13Ari Melber:If people were learning about these realities without today's very well-funded filters, starting with Fox News, which had to settle a half a billion dollar defamation suit over the way that it platformed MAGA election lives. or the broader emerging MAGA media system that spans from podcasts to big tech to billionaires buying up CBS and more so they can run point on how Trump wants these stories covered. And it ain't covering them accurately like the facts I've mentioned. And amidst all that, Trump's policies are still finding cracks of concern on the right. his bids to abuse government powers to undercut the Constitution, and, of course, to do things that undercut what we would call the actual or traditional conservative values, those have drawn scorn from some, even in these safe spaces, apart from any other independent or liberal concern.

20:14Chai Komanduri:There's a list of issues that we ask people what they felt about, and the president is underwater in all but one. When people thought about ICE, they thought, great, we're going to get rid of the gang members. They didn't think, great, you're going to get rid of a landscaper. What the f*** is going on with our country? Guys, why am I poor? I think it is unbelievably dangerous for government to put itself in the position of saying, we're going to decide what speech we like and what we don't. Do you regret your vote? Yes, I do. Very much so. I feel chain guilt and anger at the same time.

20:55Ari Melber:how common is that? I wonder if there's a way we could figure out how many Republicans have turned on the Trump agenda. Well, we have that data. I reminded you how much spin and lie there is about this, but 15 % of Republicans now disapprove of Trump's term, along with the much more vast numbers I showed you, which is how he's gotten this low. And then there's that record breaking mass protest movement we saw across this year, even as federal agents kill people. In broad daylight, we see these protests, brave individuals who really, when you think about it, echo the principles of our nation's founders, a revolt against kings and would-be kings, against abusive government intrusion into the liberties of the people.

21:41Ari Melber:So here we are. I'll tell you, when we put a report together like this, we write it over time, not all just in one day, and our team works on it. Sometimes I look at it and I think, you know, it is strange to live through this time together with a leader who is so historically unpopular and watch them sometimes wield more impact than others who had actual mandates and public support. There's something that seems really off about that. I bet you feel like that sometimes, if I were guessing. and yet that is also a very old story. Maybe the oldest. King George was not popular. That was kind of the whole point.

22:27Ari Melber:He just had power until he didn't. When enough people come together to assess a ruler based on what they're doing and their facts and also discover they have very little support, well that can begin their downfall. In a lawful democracy, that can be as simple as realizing that you're dealing with an unpopular lame duck whose time is almost up, who is threatening and cajoling because I guess that's one of the only tools he has left rather than actually summoning a popular movement that isn't there. Or to paraphrase another student of power, some cowards play tough, switch their demeanor, but we don't believe you.

23:11Ari Melber:You need more people. That was Jay-Z addressing a foe who was fake and unpopular. This unpopular leader, Donald Trump, would need a lot more people. And the nation stopped believing him a long time ago. That's our special report for you tonight. We'll be right back with Jacob Endure.

23:40Ari Melber:It just amazes me that there's not more support out there.

23:45Chai Komanduri:It's just we actually have a silent support.

23:51Ari Melber:Donald Trump referencing what has been a polling crash. He's now at a Jan 6th level low. We're back with Obama campaign veteran Che Comanduri. We worked on that report, Che, to learn from the history. Your thoughts are welcome on all of that. And the question, does it matter that in many parts of the country, Donald Trump has engineered an inflated sense or fear of his support?

24:18Chai Komanduri:Yeah, I think we have to look back and understand what happened after that election. It was a real shock to the country that Donald Trump, number one, won the popular vote. And number two, that he did so well with young people, particularly young men. I mean, I remember after the election, you know, you saw athletes doing that Trump dance at football games, at UFC, even the captain of the U.S. men's soccer team did the Trump dance. And there was a belief, there was a mistaken belief that people had that, oh, this is the MAGA future is upon us. This is what Americans want. This is the direction Americans want to go in.

24:56Chai Komanduri:Well, newsflash, that is not the direction Americans want to go in. You know, in politics, every day that you spend not talking about something that people care about is a day you have lost. And Trump basically has lost every single day since the inauguration. He has spent every single day of his presidency, talking about things that nobody cares about, whether it's Greenland, whether it's now Susan Rice and the board of Netflix, whether it's, you know, going after the Canadians, saying they're going to be the 51st state, going after the Panama Canal. None of this is anything that anybody cares about.

25:34Chai Komanduri:Yet Donald Trump incessantly talks about it and doesn't talk about the economy and the cost of living. In fact, he raises and makes the cost of worse with his tariffs.

25:45Ari Melber:Yeah, and let's show the chart here. I know I showed us several, but if you look at the start of the first term to now, that slide continues. This idea that unbridled, you know, Trump, well, this is, I'll show this one as well. This is compared to all the others. So he's got a problem compared to every other two-termer. And then if we have, I'm going to to tell the Trump approval Jan 27 to February 2026, we may have or pull it up. You see here, what's the story you see here of this slide? I mean, there's a thing about Trump where people seem like, oh, he's back, so he must be resilient. It was a comeback, especially after the indictments politically.

26:28Ari Melber:But 36 percent is historically weak and he's a lame duck.

26:35Chai Komanduri:Well, we have to remember in the first Trump term, Donald Trump inherited a very good economy from Barack Obama. Now, part of the problem that Hillary Clinton and Democrats had was that the Fed in 2015 started raising interest rates because they were worried about inflation. Then when Trump took office, they did those huge interest rate cuts so that by 2019, you had an absolutely excellent economy that was roaring that Trump was taking credit for. Now he was reelected. People wanted that pre-pandemic economy back. He has not brought it back. And not only has he not brought it back, he shows no interest in bringing it back.

27:14Chai Komanduri:I will also add the fact is Trump is not what he used to be. He is not the communicator that he used to be. You know, it is he's like The cliche of Willie Mays flopping around in the outfield when he got older, that is what Donald Trump is now. He is simply not an effective communicator anymore. I think we have to get over the idea that we are dealing with Donald Trump of the apprentice of reality TV fame that we knew from 10 years ago.

27:42Ari Melber:Could we even update the reference to Mike Tyson trying to fight today on Netflix?

27:50Chai Komanduri:Oh, yeah, exactly. Or you can, another one I think about is Ali against Trevor Burbank, right? Like, you know, that the aging fighter, you know, who is just a shadow of himself. And yeah, Mike Tyson, I think it was against Logan Paul or Jake Paul. I get the polls mixed up, you know, and he just, you know, this guy who, yeah, who's basically an amateur boxer. And, you know, Tyson, you know, has lost a step. Obviously, it happens to all of us. It has really happened very much to Donald Trump. And that was his superpower. And now it has been taken away.

28:21Ari Melber:yeah his superpower taken away his public approval historically low he is in that sense defenestrated and yet some of the most powerful people in the world running these tech companies these businesses these billionaires and others bowing to him while and this has become a theme we don't you know this isn't movies we don't write these scripts we watch what's happening while the public shows up in this big way and so he's got all of that coming at him um trying to level up tomorrow and tell a story that a lot of people aren't buying, which was sort of what the data showed us here. Che, always good to see you.

28:56Ari Melber:Thanks for giving us some context there. It is State of the Union Eve. We're going to look at what Democrats are doing also to change their response, make it different this year. A special guest on that. But the Epstein Files accountability continues. Donald Trump's nightmare. Other countries showing what accountability looks like. The great Andrew Weissman is here next.

29:20Mom?

29:20Chai Komanduri:I saw Dylan's dad make dinner. Like, actually cook, and it was straight fire. He said it was Blue Apron Assemble and Bake. All the ingredients showed up pre-chopped, and he just laid it out on a baking sheet and no cap. Dinner was on the table in, like, 25 minutes. Apparently, it's chef-designed, and it has, like, over 40 grams of protein. That's a lot, right? So maybe we try it. Just saying. You can be the next Dylan's dad. Blue Apron. Get$50 off your first two orders, plus free shipping with code STIR50. Terms and conditions apply. Visit blueapron.com slash terms for more. Start your day with the MS Now daily newsletter.

29:54Chai Komanduri:Sharp insights from voices you trust. Standout moments from your favorite shows. And fresh perspectives from experts shaping the news.

30:02Ari Melber:Sign up at MS.now.

30:09Ari Melber:A diplomat to the United States arrested after information from the Epstein files. This is a big developing story. It's about a former ambassador to the U.S. and British lord. His name is Peter Mandelson. Arrested in the U.K. The suspicion is for what they have as a charge called misconduct in public office. And it allegedly relates to Epstein. That charge is the same one that British authorities were using against former Prince Andrew, just arrested last week. And you can see, to step outside of our own country for a moment, just how big this story and the Epstein-related fallout, which is from the U.S.

30:46Ari Melber:files that were forced to be released over December to January, up through the last few weeks, how that is playing out in that country. Both these individuals are accused of improperly leaking information that they had to Epstein. Both have denied wrongdoing. You can see it is part of a growing sweep of accountability all over the place except for inside the Trump cabinet. There was scrutiny, meanwhile, on how the Congress has done things that apparently the DOJ under both parties has not, including making a very powerful rich billionaire sit down and face questions under oath about funding Epstein.

31:22Ari Melber:This was someone you may now have heard of, Les Wexner. Reports are the DOJ never bothered to do an investigative interview. And this was how his lawyer was counseling him in terms of not giving long answers during the new deposition.

31:35Chai Komanduri:But then all the things were inventoried that wasn't work for me or Jeffrey. It was just regularly done.

31:53Ari Melber:The lawyer trying to get through to his client, I will effing kill you. We take the words to not be literal if you go over five words again. But again, as we've said throughout, if you have nothing to hide, why not use more than five words? Tell the truth. And if you care about providing Congress or other parts of the government with information so that they might pursue these leads, couldn't you use more than five words? Democrats say this is part of the larger cover up. That seems like coaching the witness in legal parlance. I think that that's not something that is going to be viewed very well by the committee,

32:33Chai Komanduri:at least not by me. I think that Mr. Wexner has been coached. And I think that is, again, why so many people think there's a cover up here. There's a cover up of immense dimensions.

32:49Ari Melber:The leads are bringing out action, including arrests abroad. We're joined by Andrew Weissman, former FBI general counsel and former deputy prosecutor in charge of the Mueller probe. Welcome back, Andrew. I do expect you to use more than five words tonight. I will do that, even without being correct. It's up to you, but that's, yeah, that's the expectation. We mix the almost silly and the Baroque with the very serious, obviously, on this story. Your view of the first, the investigative process that we are seeing in the UK, that the documents added evidence, along with perhaps scrutiny and public pressure.

33:30Ari Melber:What's happening that files uncorked in the U.S. have now led to two high ranking arrests?

33:36Chai Komanduri:Well, I think you should put this in the category of people who like to think that America exceptionalism means that our justice system is preeminent and that we do a better job than anyone else. And here you could compare what is happening to Lord Mandelson, who is essentially a cabinet. He's a cabinet, former now cabinet minister. But he is like our current cabinet secretary, who is the head of commerce, Mr. Lutnick, who was caught, as you have regaled us, sort of red handed saying something completely untrue to the public. And there have been no political repercussions. And yet you have someone in England, not just the man formerly known as Prince Andrew, but also Lord Mandelson, both have been arrested and investigated.

34:33Chai Komanduri:They have also, I should say, England, France, Germany, a host of countries have held significant political leaders to account. We have not done that other than in New York state. So people should really think, and when they're thinking long and hard about our justice system, there really are models in other countries. Just think about the fact that we have a cabinet secretary, a sitting cabinet secretary who went on air to boast about how much he distanced himself from Jeffrey Epstein, only to have that uncovered as simply false. And that means he, in my view, lied, but didn't just make a mistake to the American people.

35:20Chai Komanduri:It means that Pam Bondi, who said that she knew everything that was in the Epstein files and reviewed everything, and then she knew that one of her colleagues, another cabinet official, had done this, but she didn't come public with this information. And there's been no repercussions for either of them in spite of the fact that they have not been, in my view, honest with the American people. Right.

35:47Ari Melber:And that's a level of misconduct that, again, Congress, if it took it seriously, could pursue. They could try to have him speak on this matter in more detail. They had him under oath where he came clean. But ultimately, you know, they could decide whether they view it as something where he's eventually lost confidence, whether he's impeachable. And then you say if the Democrats were to win the midterms because they they seem more interested in this accountability than the Republicans right now. You can have a vote in the Senate. You could see how many Republican senators would say, no, lying to the public is fine about your association with this sex trafficker pedophile.

36:25Ari Melber:They're going to get his back. I you know, we'd never know. But I'd be surprised if a lot of them wanted to line up and take that hard vote. And so you get to this question of sort of, yeah, what are the accountability mechanisms when the DOJ, as you just elucidated, does this and the president clearly doesn't care about this kind of stuff. I wanted to show you other news on this. People say, gosh, this story is going so long and this man died a long time ago. It's only now, this week, that Reuters has the report on the Epstein estate finally agreeing to a resolution. They're paying thirty five million dollars out of what are the deceased traffickers funds.

37:02Ari Melber:It still has to be approved by a judge, but it comes from a more recent lawsuit that went after his personal lawyer and accountant, Khan, who are the co-executors. There's no admission of misconduct, which is often the case in these kind of deals. I'm curious your view of that, Andrew, because while everyone, the worst of the worst, have a right to a lawyer and the confidentialities that go with that, There are serious questions about whether any of the individuals in that circle, and DOJ was once looking at this, stepped over the line into other things, which is not part of your legal right. And what do you think of this late effort to move some of this dead traffickers funds back towards the victims?

37:43Chai Komanduri:So this is where it's really important to tie this together in terms of accountability. If you are a victim and you are afraid to come forward or you have come forward and people say, well, it's a he said, she said, this is where the disclosure of documents is so important. We still don't have a good sense that whether the Department of Justice really did a thorough investigation. There are all sorts of reports coming out about things that were not done. But we also know that not all of the documents have been revealed, that the Department of Justice has been sitting on them, I think, to protect the president, because otherwise there's no reason not to just turn them over in this circumstance, especially since the law requires it.

38:31Chai Komanduri:And yet they're not doing it. And that means that the victims do not have access. The victims who you're supposed to be protecting, that is why you are in law enforcement, is to do this for victims, not to re-victimize them. They don't have the documents. And so I don't really view it as so belated that there may be claims coming up now. This is the kind of thing that if they had a full access to the documents to show the full scope of abuse and who participated in the abuse, either intentionally or recklessly, who aided it, all of the people around Epstein who facilitated what he was doing. There's no question he couldn't possibly pull this off where it's just him and Ghislaine Maxwell.

39:21Chai Komanduri:All of that is material that victims are entitled to in order to indicate in some measure and some recompense for what they went through.

39:33Ari Melber:Yeah, all fair points. And you're reminding us, right, it's complex when you talk about when something started. Well, when did they get enough evidence to work on it? Andrew, thank you. We have a quick break and then we look at how Democrats are treating tomorrow's State of the Union as not normal.

39:57Ari Melber:The State of the Union is tomorrow. At least a dozen Democrats will boycott it, and they are pursuing alternative programming. There's a rally on the National Mall, organized partly in coordination with a very big liberal YouTube network, Midas Touch, that is critical of Trump and has been pushing Democrats at times to adopt a more confrontational stance. We are joined now by Adam Ockler, host of The Adam Ockler Show. That is part of the Midas Touch Network. Welcome. Tell us about what you're doing and why you think it's time to do something different with these states of the union.

40:29Chai Komanduri:Abnormal times call for abnormal measures. First of all, thank you for having me. I appreciate this. But we have watched this administration lie to our faces time and time again, whether it's about the Epstein files, as you just pointed out in your previous segment, whether it's about Renee Nicole Good or Alex Preddy. They lied to our eyes about strikes in the Caribbean. And this has been, as everyone could agree, an abnormal administration. So this calls for non-traditional techniques, which means not showing up to a state of the union where they will gaslight the American people. A lot of people don't want to legitimize this speech.

41:01Chai Komanduri:And that's why the people's state of the union is happening. I believe the number is actually 20 to 30 Democratic lawmakers from representatives to senators will be skipping Donald Trump's state of the union, showing up to the people's state of the union. And we have Representative Robert Garcia, Senator Ruben Gallego, Senator Ed Markey, Senator Chris Murphy, a bunch of leaders saying that, hey, if they're going to attack the Supreme Court, crash the economy, trample on our rights, then we're not going to play by the rules that they call for.

41:29Ari Melber:When you look at the Democrats in Washington, how do you contrast this level of sort of collaboration with you to, say, five years ago?

41:38Chai Komanduri:There has been a huge shift in the way that people treat digital media and understand the power in digital media. And that's happened as people have realized that a decentralized way to consume news and share news is very, very helpful. So I think that they're taking this a lot more seriously and there's a lot of power in that. And that's going to be illustrated 24 hours from now with the People's State of the Union.

42:02Ari Melber:Running over on time, how should people connect with you if they're interested?

42:05Chai Komanduri:You can check out Adam Ockler on YouTube, Midas Touch on YouTube, on all platforms, Facebook, Instagram, Adam Ockler. Thank you for having me on.

42:13Ari Melber:Hey, thanks, Adam. And as you know, we were running out of time here, but I wanted to get this in. Definitely an interesting thing we'll be keeping an eye on tomorrow. Thank you. We'll be right back.

42:28Ari Melber:We gave you our State of the Union preview. Tomorrow, Rachel leads special coverage starting at 7 p.m. Eastern. So you can lock in for the beat at 6 and keep it going. Rachel and the whole team will be there up through and after the address. As for the beat, I want you to know that Senator Klobuchar and Governor Bashir are both my special guests tomorrow. So we're looking forward to that. Please join us. Snoring?

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