The Daily - The Cracking of the Trump Coalition

Episode Date: December 11, 2025

In the year since President Trump roared back to power, one of the most surprising story lines of his second term has been a series of public ruptures between him and the movement he created.Robert Draper, who covers domestic politics for The New York Times, discusses the growing tensions inside the MAGA movement and what they tell us about what the American right might look like in a post-Trump world.Guest: Robert Draper, who covers domestic politics.Background reading: After an interview with a white nationalist, Tucker Carlson has continued to fracture the right.Marjorie Taylor Greene strove both to be the ultimate Trump warrior and to be taken seriously. She wound up in political exile.Nick Fuentes is a white nationalist problem for the right.Photo: Doug Mills/The New York TimesFor more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.  Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.

From the New York Times, I'm Natalie Kittrow-F. This is the Daily. In the years since Donald Trump roared back to power, one of the most surprising storylines of his second term has been a series of increasingly public ruptures between the president and the movement he created. On everything from affordability to forer, in wars, key figures on the right are now daring to challenge Trump's priorities and his

effectiveness. Today, my colleague Robert Draper on the growing tensions inside the Maga movement and what they tell us about what the American right might look like in a post-Trump world. It's Thursday, December 11th. Robert, hi, welcome back to the show. Thanks so much for having me. So we're coming to you because for several years now, you've been reporting extensively on the right. And as a part of that, you spent a lot of time

with some of the key figures in the MAGA movement, some of whom have started to openly speak out against the president. And so we're hoping you can help us. understand what's been happening in the relationship between President Trump and his movement, which, until recently, looked pretty unshakable. Yeah, in a sense, Natalie, what's taking place is in step with what historically has transpired with presidencies that after a certain period, a president begins to take on the appearance of being a lame duck. He no longer is in full control of.

of the agenda, and the party begins to look at life after him. But typically, that has taken place after the midterms, after a two-year period. And so what's really notable is that this president is now just 10 to 11 months in, beginning to show the signs of weakness that historically we associate with a lame duck, when, in fact, he should not be a lame duck. Right. And alongside that, it's also notable that President Trump, like no other political figure before him in recent memory, at least, has exerted a real stranglehold over his party. The party's philosophy, the party's governing ideology has been whatever President Trump has said it will be. That has started to change. And the fact that people are daring, and let's be clear, not everyone is, but that it's.

anyone is beginning to voice objections or take exception to President Trump's governing philosophy is something very new. So the fact that it's happening at all and the fact that it's happening so early are both unusual features that were, I don't think, in any way expected when this president first took his oath in January. Right. It does strike me as honestly stunning because it feels as though just a few months ago we were thinking of this president really as all-powerful, as kind of invincible. He was swept in with this mandate. He was taking executive actions left and right. And very quickly, you're saying he's now being seen within his own party as vulnerable, it sounds like. That's right. And when President Trump took his second oath of office,

there were people on the right proclaiming this, the golden era of America. They really believed that nothing would be impossible with this president. But that began to change, however, in the late summer, when we began to see prominent conservative influencers dared to go off message from administration policy and, in fact, outright contradict what the administration's preferred policy was. And so in doing so, they began implicitly to announce that the president was no longer omnipotent and to presage a kind of vulnerability in this administration. Okay, so take us back to that time during the late summer when this started to emerge. When did all of this start to feel distinct to you?

Yeah, I can place a date on it, that date of September 10th of this year when Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Kirk, the head of Turning Point, USA, was not only a conservative activist, but a conservative of the president. And to be clear, Natalie, there were already fissures in the movement. There was disquiet over the president's intransigence regarding his refusal to release the Epstein files. There was concern relating to the president's decision to bomb nuclear facilities in Iran. And Charlie Kirk was unable to tamp down altogether those growing concerns. I want to try to address the issue that many people in our audience are emailing us about.

I'm, of course, talking about the Epstein situation. What Kirk was able to do was to modulate criticisms of the president. Everyone knows my opinion about the Epstein thing. I would love to see the DOJ move to unseal the grand jury testimony. I think that would be a big win. To say externally, I think that we should release the Epstein files. And once it became evident to Kirk, where the president stood on this

that he didn't want to hear right-wing influencers talking about the subject of Epstein anymore. Kirk was able to expertly pivot away from him pressing for the release of the files to saying, I'm going to trust

Cash Patel, Dan Bongino, J.D. Vance. It's their ball. It's their possession. I have full faith in the administration's ability to look into this matter. I've said my piece. and that viewpoint became the prevailing talking point amongst figures on the right. I'm going to trust my friends of the government to do what needs to be done. So this was the unique skill of Kirk to enforce a kind of discipline in the overall message of the right.

People looked to Kirk in that regard. And correspondingly then, when he was gunned down on September the 10th, that discipline almost immediately began. to give way. And without him, it began to feel like the conservative movement or the MAGA movement was not so much cast adrift, but reverberating with all of these tensions. So, Robert, where do you first see the impact of that loss on MAGA? Like, what's the first example of these divisions that were bubbling up starting to spill out in the open after Kirk's death? I think the first moment at which these discontents, disagreements became very public was when Tucker Carlson hosted on his show the white nationalist Nick Fuentes. Fuentes had been considered a sort of verboten figure in the conservative movement, a guy they very much wanted to keep at the margins because he has casually issued some unabashed.

anti-Semitic and racist and sexist commentary. He has suggested that the numbers don't add up when it comes to six million Jews perishing in the Holocaust. He has said outright that blacks were better off under Jim Crow than they are today. He has made all sorts of obnoxious statements regarding women and how they should essentially be used as chattel. And most of all, he has not just spoken critically of Israel in the Israeli government, but he has honed in on what he calls the problem of organized Jewry in America and has been unapologetic in his belief that Jews are a problem unassimable and incorrigible in their unwillingness to assimilate, and that that presents America with its foremost problem.

And so for Carlson, who is arguably the most influential conservative voice in America, a person who remains very close to President Trump through the thick and thin of their disagreements and who is especially close to Vice President J.D. Vance to be offering Nick Fuentes an opportunity to air his bigoted musing. was the reason why so many people viewed this interview with great alarm. Let's just slow that down for a moment. Can you tell us about Nick Fuentes? Who is he? Sure.

Nick Fuentes is a 27-year-old right-wing influencer who had been more or less on the scene since 2017. He was an early and loud supporter of President Trump, but not one of any. particular consequence. In 2017, he began to pop up in the media because at the Unite the right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, that included the notorious chant, you will not replace us. Jews will not replace us. The torch carriers, yeah. Yes. Fuentes was among them. So he began to gain some traction then, but by and large was held at bay from the right and that continued really to be the case, even when he had dinner with Kanye West with President Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

These were the sort of sporadic appearances by Fuentes, but he was still viewed as not a major figure. And yet, at the same time, right, Trump didn't disavow Fuentes. He didn't condemn him after that infamous lunch. She kind of said something like, I didn't know who this guy was, I didn't invite him, but there was no direct disavow. No, and that's a salient point, Natalie, Trump's refusal to say, and by the way, had I known, I would never have brought him, you know, at Mar-a-Lago, was very much in keeping with the statements made by Marjorie Taylor Green, the congresswoman from Georgia, and Congressman Paul Gosar, when each of them in 2021 and 2022 appeared. at Nick Fuentes' America First conferences. So what's going on here? Why the refusal to condemn Flentes outwardly?

What that's about is that they all recognize that Fuentes, for whatever else he was or wasn't, commanded a sizable following of young, male, almost entirely white, disaffected conservatives, which is a key part of the Trump coalition. And no one wished to condemn Fuenes for fear of condemning his followers. Right. They don't want to kick him out of the tent. That's right. They want him out of the tent, but they still want his people. And so he's presented the conservative movement with something of a conundrum throughout. Mainly then, the view of Fentis was hopefully he will just go away, and these young disaffected male conservatives will find another big brother figure. So that was the state of play until around August and early September of this year when Tucker Carlson happened to make a sidelong comment about Fuentes on his show, saying that Fuentes was just some kid living in his basement saying obnoxious things. And Fuentes saw that as an opportunity to issue days and days of rebuttals on his own podcast, which in turn really ratcheted up his story.

following and brought attention not just to Fuentes vis-a-vis Carlson, but Fuentes in general. And all of the podcasters on the ride began to talk about this dust up between those two. And so finally, Carlson himself decided and was convinced, frankly, by people who were friends of his, who talked to him and said, you know, you're underestimating this guy, Fuentes. He actually has a really sizable following, and Carlson decided them to have him on his show. Nick Fuentes, thank you for doing this. Yeah, thank you for having me. wanted to meet you. I've heard about you.

Hmm. I've heard about you. So, thank you. And it was this very sort of genial two hours. You're one of those people. One of the reasons I wanted to meet you is you're one of those people who is defined by clips. Yes. And I'm one of those people also. Yes. Yes. So I get it.

In which Carlson, in effect, slid the microphone in front of Fuentes and let him riff on. So I'm going to just shut up and you tell me what you actually believe. Yeah. Well, and listen, I mean, and I appreciate you saying that because it's, that's just a reality of the media environment we're in. So if you, I don't expect you to know all my views. But I mean, as far as the Jews are concerned. Now, why did Tucker Carlson do this? Well, you know, why? Yeah, my question exactly. Sure. Well, and I think that the answer to that, Natalie, is that he was finding common cause in Fuentes, because Carlson himself, over the past year, had become increasingly anti-Israel, or, as he would put it, anti-Israeli government. I always thought it's great to criticize and its question, like, our relationship with Israel, because it's insane and it hurts us. We get nothing out of it. I completely agree with you there. That the Israeli government has been the tail that has wagged the dog. of American affairs for far too long. I've always thought I have the world's most moderate position on Israel.

Don't hate Israel. Just don't want to get involved in their wars. Don't want to pay for this. Don't want to pay for abortion on demand in a foreign country. Sorry. When we're cutting food stamps on our own, like, that's outrageous. It's not America first. While insisting that he abhors anti-Semitism.

What I do think is bad, just objectively bad and destructive, is the all Jews are guilty or all anybody. is guilty of anything, because that's just, like, not true. But by and large, he was very accommodating towards Fuentes' view, which was and is unambiguously anti-Semitic. Like I said, you cannot actually divorce Israel and the neocons and all of those things that you talk about from Jewishness. There had never really been anyone of Tucker Carlson's stature

who had spoken to people. Fuentes before on the air. You're clearly ascendant. You're enormously talented. You're more talent than I am, for sure, as a talker. And to give him that kind of softball treatment. Nick Fuentes, thank you very much. Thank you.

It's nice to meet you. Likewise. I struck so many on the right as really alarming and inappropriate. Tucker Carlson's a nobody. He got famous on Fox. That's it. Mark Levin, the right-wing broadcaster, denounced Carlson. Mick Fuentes is gum on the bottom of our shoe.

Tucker Carlson is a bleeding hemorrhoid on the body politic. They're not MAGA. They're not conservative. Today, Tucker Carlson is the most dangerous anti-Semite in America. The Congressman Randy Fine said as well that Carlson's remarks and his amiable treatment of Flintes had no place in the conservative movement. Tucker is not MAGA. And in particular, the well-known right-wing podcaster, Ben Shapiro of the Daily Wire.

Shapiro himself is an Orthodox Jew. He made no bones about it. The issue here isn't that Tucker Carlson had Nick Flentes on his show last week. He has ever right to do that, of course. The issue here is that Tucker Carlson decided to normalize and fluff Nick Flintes. This is anti-Semitism. It is not cancellation to refuse to signal boost Hitler's supporters like Nick Flentes. It is not cancellation to criticize Tucker Carlson for rhetorically fluffing Nick Flentes and other anti-American crackpots.

So this Tucker Fuentes interview obviously touched a nerve over divisions on the question of the U.S. relationship with Israel and anti-Semitism and whether there is tolerance for blatant anti-Semitism in the conservative movement. And I'm curious where Trump sits in all of this, Robert, because he's obviously maintained a very close alliance with Israel, but he's also been known to have a meal with Nick Fuentes. So where is Trump on this? And what does this whole saga tell us about his vulnerability on this issue? Yeah, it's a great question, Natalie. And on the one hand, I think that Trump has. been one of the most pro-Israel presidents we've seen. On the other hand, has at no point denounced Fuentes, nor for that matter has Vice President J.D. Vance, despite the fact that Fuentes has routinely insulted not only Vance, but Vance's wife and her family who are from India. So there is a permission structure seemingly for bigotry and anti-Semitism to be aired out in the conservative movement,

which makes a lot of people on the right uncomfortable. But you mentioned vulnerability, and I think this is an important thing to focus on, not just as it relates to anti-Semitism, but also how one interprets this administration's priorities when the president was elected largely on keeping our attention fixed to domestic issues. Now Nick Fuentes and Tucker Carlson are able to reasonably assert, that foreign entanglements have intruded into and in many ways disrupted those administration priorities, not just as regards Israel, but as regards Ukraine and as regards Venezuela.

And it sounds like it's connected to a kind of broader question that's being asked about Trump's priorities in general, the focus on foreign affairs, on foreign conflicts, to potentially the detriment of a focus on domestic issues? Yes. So I talked to Tucker Carlson about this when I spent a few hours with him in November. And Carlson had a theory on this, and he said, look, the truth is that President Trump is realizing how difficult it is to solve a lot of these intractable domestic issues, particularly as relates to affordability. You know, you can talk about the price of eggs or something or even the price. of gas, but overall, there is a real affordability crisis in America, and it's tough to do

anything about that. Carlson said that, by contrast, you know, you can go bomb a nuclear side in Iran, knowing Iran probably isn't going to do anything about it, and you can look heroic and you can look powerful. And so Trump, for all of his own focus historically on domestic problems, is now realizing it's easier to be godlike in the foreign policy arena than at home. Right. I mean, there's a political logic to what Carlson is saying here. One of the main issues driving Trump's election was the economy. And so I imagine there's a lot of people who feel like they voted for him because they expected Trump as president to have a laser-like focus on pocketbook issues, rather than on mediating conflicts in far-flung places, which is something

he's done a lot of in his first year. Right. But in raising that point, Natalie, what you're doing is essentially introducing what I think is an important distinction, and that it is the distinction between two slogans by President Trump, MAGA, Make America Great Again, and America First. So, Make America Great Again is basically a campaign slogan. It's inextricably tied to President Trump. I mean, everyone kind of understands that what it means is,

like America wasn't great when Obama was president. It became great when Trump became president. It became terrible again when Biden was president. Now it's great again because of Trump. It's, to put it bluntly, a personality cult notion. But it is finally a slogan. America first is a principle. And defining what America first is, is the kind of thing that's subject to useful ideological argument. I think that Tucker Carlson and perhaps just as much Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green have been at the forefront of saying, look, America First Principles have been laid out. They have been commonly understood by conservatives, by voters of President Trump.

And now the Trump administration has been wayward, has veered off of those commitments to Americans. And at the same time, you know, spending money on things that a lot of people took issue with, a ballroom, for example. Yes, that his own act. seemed to be at variance with his pledges to put Americans first. And it's this cognitive dissonance that began to result in another noticeable fracture in the party, particularly with Marjorie Taylor Green. And we will talk about her right after the break. We'll be right back.

Robert, you brought up Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green from Georgia. And her evolution really feels emblematic of this break with Trump that we're starting to see among some on the right. Obviously, she became famous for being one of Trump's closest allies. And now she has since announced her resignation from office and said pretty explicitly that Trump is betraying the movement. So let's talk about this journey that Marjorie Taylor Green has been on. I mean, Natalie, it is a singular journey. It represents the most extreme case of a magalloyalist becoming a dissenting voice to the Trump-adem. But having said that, I do think that it does reflect in a broader sense this evolution from

everyone singing with precision from the maga hymnal to now striking discordant notes. And that is so remarkable given how unflagging a supporter Green was of Trump. She arrived in Washington in early January of 2021, freshly elected with. an unapologetically pro-Trump campaign platform, expecting that she would be part of facilitating President Trump's second term. Instead, she arrived just a couple of days before January the 6th, with Trump having been defeated. And at a time on the heels of the Capitol riot, when a lot of Republicans wanted to distance themselves from the defeated former president, Marjorie Taylor Green was the most vociferous defender of Trump, really in Washington, and continued to be so throughout his campaign in 2024 when he was at the Republican National Convention. She sat by his side on the second day in the presidential booth

and was pledging that Trump was a gift from God and that she viewed him in kind of these theological proportions as someone who would be saving America. So the beginning of Trump's second term, saw Marjorie Taylor Green unflaggingly by his side. But then alongside her own arc regarding Trump was her own experience in Congress when she became increasingly disillusioned with her own party that once it had power, didn't really do anything with it. And she began to think maybe of running for something else, perhaps senator, perhaps governor of Georgia. And far from getting any encouragement, the Trump White House basically threw a, wet blanket over that. She told me that she felt like all of her loyalty to Trump was amounting to a

one-way street. It wasn't being rewarded. That's correct. Yes. And so that sets the stage then, I think, for what began to happen over the last two or three months, where she began to be increasingly disillusioned, not just with the Republican Party, but with President Trump himself. And I think that one real flashpoint was Trump's refusal to release the Epstein fire. This had become an article of faith amongst the right. The one thing they could all agree on was that Jeffrey Epstein was the most heinous sex trafficker in America. And so to see now Trump hedging and then saying,

stop talking about Epstein, there's no there there, was outrageous to her. Then, during the government shutdown, she began to go home, and she'd talked to her constituents, and they'd say, you know, housing is still unaffordable. Grocers are still unaffordable. We thought that the president was going to do something about this. And why, by the way, is he spending all this money in Israel? And we're seeing

this horrible footage of what's taking place in Gaza. Green told me that she began to hear the G word, genocide by her own constituents. And Green became the first prominent Republican to describe what was taking place in Gaza as a genocide. So Green began to voice her concerns very publicly. And it's not just that she voiced him, but it's where she voiced them. For the very first time on The View, we are joined by someone you might be surprised to see here. She went on The View. Please welcome Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Green. Which is largely regarded as a left-leaning show.

And the specter of this right-wing mega-warier being on a show like that was a rather remarkable one. And one, frankly, that people on the set of the view were surprised at. I spoke to one of them who had said that they were suspecting that Green would come in loaded for bear and just rip into all of them and once again talk about how great Trump was. Look, I'm with women, so I feel very comfortable saying this. I'm really tired of the pissing contest in Washington, D.C., between the men. I really am.

They were not prepared at all for this really very accommodating individual. And I feel like the government has failed all of us. and it purely disgust me. Who said, look, things have gotten overheated in today's politics. I represent a district that is rural manufacturing district, blue-collar workers, and people have been crushed by decades of failure in Washington, D.C. And so I have no problem pointing fingers at everyone. And one by one...

Maybe it's become a Democrat, Marjorie. No. I feel like I'm sitting next to a completely different Marjorie Taylor Green. the co-hosts on the air expressed astonishment that this was the Marjorie Taylor Green they were seeing. And in addition to the view, Green was speaking to other media outlets. Here's my issue. I'm America first, and I don't apologize for that. And I believe Congress, both Democrats and Republicans, should be serving the American people.

Though what you had to say during these interviews wasn't openly, critical of the administration. Implicitly, she was striking a note of disagreement. When you campaign on America first, it's like having a restaurant, advertising like a certain type of food, and then you don't deliver America first. You're not going to have those return customers. I don't know what happened to Marjorie. She's a nice woman, but I don't know what happened.

She's lost away, I think. And it clearly got under President Trump's skin. Somebody like Marjorie Taylor Green, who's now catering. to the other side. I don't know what, you know, I guess she's, you know, got some kind of an act on, but I'm surprised at her. But when somebody like Marjorie goes over and starts making statements like that, it shows she doesn't know. The great umbrage that he took was expressed finally. Tonight, disagreements between President Trump and one of his most reliable and vocal supporters in Congress have taken an ugly turn. With a posting that he made on true social.

Marjorie Trader Green is a disgrace to our great Republican Party, he wrote on social media. In which he called her Marjorie Trader Green, belittled her. Hmm, I can't take a ranting lunatics call every day, end quote. I said that she was always trying to call him, but that he had no time for this, that she was pouting because he hadn't been supportive of her political ambitions, but now he not only had had enough of her. The president even suggested he'd be open to backing a challenger to her seat in Congress. He alluded to the distinct likelihood that he would try to find a Trump loyalist who would primary her in her congressional race in 2026.

Yeah, I mean, this was a pretty frontal attack by Trump. So how does Green respond? She was deeply upset, most of all by the label of her. as a traitor. And, of course, the implication was that she was a traitor, not just to President Trump and to the MAGA movement, but a traitor to America. And she was really outraged by that. What she also reacted to was a torrent of death threats that came in. This, in a sense, was not new to Green. She had gotten death threats really from early on in taking office. She was being doxed. Lots of things like that were happening. They were all happening from the left,

however. Now she was getting attacks from what she often described as her favorite president. Her favorite president was unleashing in her view these threats. And it's not just that the threats were levied against her. They were levied against her own children. And her children were named. I know this because Greene told me that and said she was terrified. So it was really, really alarming and scary for her. Wow. And so this was, I was getting all these texts, by the way, you know, from friends of mine, the political world, saying she's rebranding herself. What is this about? And what is your sense about what these appearances were really about?

Were they driven by the feedback she was getting from her constituents? Was it something else? Yes, the former, tinged also with the belief of, what the hell? I've got nothing to lose. Since Wim has my unflagging loyalty paid off for me, it hasn't. So she felt somewhat liberated from her allegiances to President Trump. But I think alongside that, she truly believed what she was saying. She truly had heard what her constituents had been telling her that they were, like her, taking the president's principle of America first, not just seriously, but literally.

You know, they were saying, hang on, how is it America first to be not just supporting Ukraine, but also Israel? Do we not care about women who have been victimized by the rich and powerful? And meanwhile, things are still expensive. Why isn't the president out there every day doing something about this? These were the tenants of America first that they believed the president would be addressing, that Marjorie Taylor Green was certain he would be addressing. But she now began to have doubts in part because she was hearing her constituents raise those very same doubts. And not long after.

Hi, everyone. She announces that she's going to resign. That's correct. I've always represented the common American man and woman as a member of the House of Representatives, which is why I've always been despised in Washington, D.C., and just never fit in. She did a video that she posted on X. I ran for Congress in 2020 and have fought every single day, believing that make America great again meant America first.

It was a posting that took even her close allies by surprise. America first should mean America first. only Americans first, with no other foreign country ever being attached to America First in our halls of government. It became, I think, obvious to most, if not all, that it was really her renouncing a movement that had strayed from its core America First principle. I do not want my sweet district to have to endure a hurtful and hateful primary against me by the president that we all fought for. And that she would be fighting if she were to be reelected on behalf of a president who now

disliked her and who had done her great injury, but also who no longer was the embodiment of America first. And so what was the point of that? I have to ask, Robert, isn't the fact that Green stepped down over this dust? up a sign that Trump is actually stronger politically than we may be thinking. I mean, I think a lot of people might see this incident as him winning. He still, at the end of the day, had the political weight to drive one of his critics out of political office.

Historically, that has been the case, just as you've described it, Natalie, that this is a show of Trump's power. But to say that now would be to ignore the atmospherics, that all of this is taking place at a point in which Trump's approval rating is near the lowest that it's ever been. At a time when people on the right, like Tucker Carlson, are beginning to, you know, speak with a great deal of bluntness, with real candor about the Trump administration's misguided priorities. So if this was just crushing the one lone dissenter and everybody then issuing a chorus on the right of good riddins to her, we all love President Trump, it'd be one thing, but that's not actually what's taken place.

She simply said Trump's White House is not doing what they said they were going to do. And that sentiment is one that is beginning to gain a lot of traction on the right. It's extending to the Trump coalition that got him reelected in 2020. I don't think that his hardcore base has deserted him. But the bottom has really fallen out of his support amongst independence, and they were key to his victory, as were young people and black males and Latino males as well. Now, whether it's because of their own experiences or because they happen to be listening to Tucker Carlson, to Nick Fuentes, and to other influencers, or a combination, the polling data clearly shows that these people who were so crucial to Trump's victory in 2024 are starting to move away from him in really, really significant numbers. And so even if his core base remains steadfast, the clear and present. danger for the Trump administration is that he no longer has a solid coalition of the type

that brought him victory. I just want to say hello, Pennsylvania, and I'm thrilled to be back. Robert, I want to end by asking, if you get the sense that Trump is actually listening, perhaps, to the concerns that are being raised by voters and by people like Marjorie. Taylor Green. He's just kicked off this new domestic tour, the purpose of which is to go around the country and talk about issues

of affordability. You're getting lower prices, bigger paychecks. And that does feel like an acknowledgement in some sense that he knows he has a problem here. Yes, that's true. He certainly absorbed

this. I think that his testiness has been on full display. They said, He should be traveling. He should focus on home. What the hell do you think I'm doing? The posture is not one of voters, I hear you. I feel your pain.

Far from it. Instead, he has been dismissive of the word affordability. But they use the word affordability, and that's their only word. They say affordability. But I think most of all, Natalie, what has annoyed Trump is that his voters had been generally trusted. of everything that Trump said he was doing or was about to do during his first 100 days. But the anxieties that his constituents are feeling is now impossible to hide.

And I think that that has created a real defensiveness with Trump. You know, the stupid people, they say, he should be living in our country. Yeah, let's sit around and twiddle our thumbs. So will this tour that Trump is embarking on help mend the same? schisms in the Republican Party and restore him as the one and only voice in the conservative movement, possibly. But I do think that what we've seen take place is an emergence of voices who dare to hold the president accountable to his America first pledge. And as various people joust over just what that pledge should be,

the fractures that ensued are really going to be impossible to heal. It's hard to imagine what would happen to bring all those pieces back together. Well, Robert, thank you so much for your time. Sure thing, Natalie. We'll be right back. Here's what else you need to know today.

It's been an interesting day from the standpoint of news. President Trump announced Wednesday afternoon that the U.S. had seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. Large tanker, very large. Largest one ever seized, actually. The seizure was a clear escalation in the U.S. was a clear escalation in the U. the administration's pressure campaign against Nicholas Maduro, the president of Venezuela. Trump didn't offer any additional details about the operation, but U.S. officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the action was the result of deliberate planning and that there were no casualties. And the Federal Reserve voted on Wednesday to lower interest rates by a quarter

of a percentage point. It was the fourth straight boat in a row that wasn't backed by all members. a mark of just how fractured the central bank has become as it struggles to balance the risks of rising unemployment and sticky inflation. Today's episode was produced by Caitlin O'Keefe and Eric Kruppke, with help from Alex Stern. It was edited by Rachel Quester, with help from Paige Cowett. Fact-checked by Susan Lee.

Contains music by Marion Lazzano, Alicia E. Tube, Dan Powell, and Diane Wong. and was engineered by Chris Wood. That's it for the Daily. I'm Natalie Kittrow F. See you tomorrow.