What A Day - Trump: Bigly Unpopular

Episode Date: January 22, 2026

After meeting with NATO allies in Davos, Switzerland, President Donald Trump took to Truth Social to announce “the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland and, in fact, the entire Arctic Region.” He also said he would not be imposing the tariffs he threatened against eight European countries less than a week ago — which is probably good, because Americans did not want him to mess with Greenland. But that’s not the President’s only unpopular stance. We're one year into Trump’s second term in the White House, and his polling numbers are subterranean across the board. To talk more about Trump’s numbers, we spoke to Dan Pfeiffer. He’s the host of Crooked Media’s Pollercoaster podcast and co-host of Pod Save America.And in headlines, the Supreme Court casts doubt on Trump’s efforts to fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, the Department of Homeland Security announces a new ICE operation in Maine, and Former Special Counsel Jack Smith is expected to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee today.Show Notes:Check out Pollercoaster –https://crooked.com/podcast-series/pollercoaster/Call Congress – 202-224-3121Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcastFollow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/For a transcript of this episode, please visit crooked.com/whataday Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's Thursday, January 22nd. I'm Jane Koston, and this is what a day. The show demanding that we return to the good old days when times were simple and hotel bathrooms had doors. Yes, doors. Opaic doors that close. Not sliding doors, not frosted glass, not no doors at all. Doors. On today's show, let Lisa Cook. The Supreme Court cast out on President Donald Trump's efforts to fire the Federal Reserve governor. And open your mailbox. There's a bill.

Another bill? That's also a bill. But what's this? It's a crisp, wax-sealed, handwritten letter. But let's start with Trump. Good news. The United States is not purchasing Greenland, nor is it taking the island by force. I think? Maybe.

After meeting with NATO allies at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Trump wrote on true social Wednesday morning, quote, We have formed the framework of a future deal with respect to Greenland, and in fact, the entire Arctic region. He added, quote, Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1st. If you're wondering what a framework of a future deal means, Trump can totally explain it, like he did to a reporter on C.S.

NBC on Wednesday. It looks like we have pretty much a concept of a deal. A deal of ownership, a deal. Well, it's a little bit complex, but we'll explain it down the line. But the Secretary General of NATO and I and some other people were talking, and it's the kind of a deal that I wanted to be able to do. Wait, that wasn't helpful at all. So here's what we do know, and it's not very much.

According to the New York Times, the deal, such as it exists, involves Denmark- giving the U.S. sovereignty over pockets of land in Greenland on which America could build military bases. Now, you might be thinking, doesn't the U.S. already have a military base in Greenland? Yes, it does. The Bedoufnick Space Base. So, as far as I can tell, all of this bullshit, threatening NATO allies and sending mean letters to Nordic leaders led up to a deal where we can build military bases in a place where we already have a military base. Seems worth it. But this walk-back climb-down taco experience, because Trump always chickens out, is probably good for Trump.

Because like we've been saying this whole time, Americans do not want to buy Greenland. Here's CNN's Harry Anton on Wednesday, comparing the purchase of Greenland to another super unpopular Trump stance. Take a look here. Trump's not approval rating on the Epstein files. Look at that. Just absolutely awful. 38 points below water. But any try to buy Greenland is somehow even, more unpopular. Look at this. It's 40 points below water. There is barely an issue out there that's worse for Donald Trump than the Epstein files, but any attempts to buy Greenland or use military force on Greenland, which even polls worse than this, is one of them. It is arguably the most unpopular thing that Donald Trump can try to do is mess with Greenland. And it's not just Greenland. We're one year

into Trump's second term in the White House and his polling numbers are subterranean. So to talk more, about how dangerous and unpopular Trump could be, I spoke to Dan Pfeiffer. He's the host of Crooked Media's Polar Coaster Podcast and co-host of Pod Save America. Dan, welcome back to what today? It's great to be here. Trump's polls are bad. He's more than a dozen points underwater on average, according to the New York Times polling aggregator. Where does that put him historically?

In a very, very bad place. I guess this would be the best, easiest understand benchmark is he is, he is, about four to five points further underwater than Joe Biden was at this point. And there is this, like, debate about how we benchmark Trump. Are we benchmarking him in the end of the first year of a term or at the end of the fifth year of a term? Either way, his numbers are very bad. Yeah, that actually gets me to another question, which is that I've been thinking about second term presidents. Now, obviously, Trump is a relatively unique example because he was voted out and then voted back in. that's not very common.

But how do second term presidents tend to fare, both in polling and in the midterms? What is it about second terms that are so tough for presidential administrations? It's the lame duck problem, which is voters start to see them as lame ducks. They look weak. The party begins to think about the future, the posts, you know, whatever the post White House future is of this party. And they begin to separate themselves. And the only recent example where Democrat, where the incumbent president did well on their second midterm was Bill Clinton. And that's because the Republicans impeached him for a reason that the American people did not agree with at the time.

But in every other case, they suffer mightily. And what the reason why that is is it's not just that they suffer in the midterms. It's that when a second term's president numbers go down, they almost never come back. Because what brings them back, the reason why Clinton can lose a million seats in 94 and very. bounce back, or even Trump can lose a bunch of seats in 2018 to bounce back is you have the forcing mechanism of the re-election campaign to sort of resort things in terms of partisanship where even if you're down on the president of your party in the midterms, now when you're forced to choose between them and some of the else's party, you come home. And there's no reason to come home here.

Trump has never been a capital P popular president. But what's interesting to me is that Trump is polling poorly on the issues, not only that he was polling positively on a year ago, but the issues he was elected on, namely immigration and the economy. What does that tell you? Well, it says two things. And I think we should take them separately on immigration. Trump ran on a mass deportation plan. But if you were just watching the news, watching TV ads, watching the conversation on social media, what you would believe is that Trump was running to secure the border and to get criminals, gag members, and drug members, and drive. drug traffickers out of our country. That is not what he is doing. That's not what people see he's doing.

What he is actually running a mass deportation plan is getting people who have been in this country for a very long time, who pay taxes, who work out of this country. And voters do not support that. Even Lawrence Wass, the Republican voters do not support that. So he is violating that promise. More importantly, he told people that he would lower their costs. He didn't hedge it and say, I will curb inflation. He didn't say, I will fight to try the lower costs. He said, elect me and your grocery prices, your housing prices, your health care prices, your gas prices, will go down. Those prices have not just not gone down, they have gone up, and they have gone up because of his tariffs, and people see that. Like when Barack Obama was running for reelection, even in 2012,

if you ask voters who was responsible for the state of the economy, a majority would say George W. Bush, not Obama. You ask that question right now in the Wall Street Journal poll, and a 58% say, this is Donald Trump's economy. Because of his tariffs, people now explicitly blame him for high prices, and he's paying a huge price, pun intended, in the polls for it. And among the groups, I think one of the most important groups that he is paying the price with in polling are independent voters. Independent voters who favored Trump in 2024, independent voters are an increasingly large population and critical to wins in the midterms and in the next presidential election. and after they favored him in 2024, they are down on him. What do you think that that says?

I think you can see this. You can see it with independents. You can see it with Latino voters. You can see it with working class voters of color. You can see it with young voters, particularly young men. These are people who were not in love with Trump. They're not mega voters. They don't own mega hats.

They probably don't even like a lot of what Trump does or says, but they made a bet that he would lower their costs. And he has not fulfilled his side of the bet. And so they were banning them. What gets me, well, what annoys me? Fair enough. Is that the polls tell us that voters do not like Trump on pretty much any of his issues. But when you talk about Congress, some polls are finding that Americans support Republicans in Congress more than Democrats in Congress on multiple issues, including immigration. So like, Trump is negative on immigration and polling.

Republicans are positive on immigration and polling. Why? This is the bright, glaring warning sign for Democrats, which is politics typically acts as a seesaw. One side goes down, the other one goes up. That is not happening here. Democrats are not trusted. Our party approval is at near its lowest level in history. We are seeing, even now, more new voters or voters, or voters, Republicans than Democrats.

We have not given people a reason to trust us on those issues. The only issues where we tend to pull better are the ones that are at our end. are absolute core democratic issues like health care and abortion, climate change, on all the rest, Republicans have an advantage. And, you know, it's interesting because Democrats are winning on the generic ballot when you ask people, whether they go for a Republican or a Democrat, which tells you two things. One, it tells you that they are looking for a check on Trump. They don't think all Republican government is working.

So they will even take a party that they don't fully trust just as a bulwark, if you will, against Trump. And two, the fact that that generic poll lead is so small, it's about four points. There are a bunch of voters we could be getting because of Trump's approval rating, but are not because they don't yet have faith that we are strong enough to be that check on Trump. It seems in some ways, like his team is sort of aware that he is unpopular. And you can see that with the housing policy. And I'm going to put that in quotes because it's not a real housing policy. They've been talking more sort of about affordability.

But Trump himself is far more interested in really, really. unpopular policy ideas, mostly in foreign policy, like buying Greenland. Here's my big picture question. This has been something I cannot get over. The Trump administration is not trying to sell any of this to the American people. There is no like broad effort to like make this Greenland thing make sense to everyday Americans. You worked in a presidential administration. Part of politics is trying to sell policy to people.

Why are they not selling policy to Normies? They don't believe that anyone who didn't vote for Trump matters. This is true in his first administration of this is true now. Their belief is, their political theory, is fire up the base. Now, during the campaign, they made very explicit efforts to reach out to less engaged voters, so a lot of the groups that has mentioned, who might be open to Trump. They were very gross about that. But Trump's never on the ballot again.

even he has admitted that fact. So they are trying to do nothing other than speak to the base. And part of it is you now have an entire generation of Republican politicians and political operatives who have been raised in a hermetically sealed right-wing news bubble. So they don't even understand the tools you would use to do it. You're not even aware of how other people consume information and they frankly don't really care. I think my last question for you is he does not care about the things that most Americans care about. He does not seem to care that most Americans don't like what he's doing. What worries you the most about second-term Trump? A Trump who seems simultaneously like a lame duck, but also totally unshackled from anything anybody cares about? Like there is a massive and concerning paradox here, which is he has never been weaker politically and he's never been more dangerous substantively. Right. He is willing to push every limit, break every norm.

I mean, he has sent 3,000 ice trips to Minneapolis because of a bizarre sort of right-wing conspiracy theory around fraud, as if it had never been investigated even though it had been. And as if he doesn't love fraud. He loves fraudsters. Yes, I mean, he's parting them left and right. And so I think that you don't want to run into a wounded bear. And he is a very wounded bear right now.

Dan, as always, thank you for joining me. Absolutely. Thank you, Jane. That was my conversation with, Dan Fifer, host of Crooked Media's Polar Coaster and co-host of Pot Save America. Hey, thanks for listening. If you're enjoying what you're hearing, hit that subscribe button and leave a five-star review. And if you're more of a visual learner, watch us on YouTube. More to come after some ads. What a day is brought to you by Zbiotics. Let's face it. After a night with drinks, I don't bounce back the next day like I used to. I have to make a choice. I can either have a great night

or a great next day. That is, until I found pre-alcohol. Zbiotics pre-alcohol probiotic drink is the world's first genetically engineered probiotic. It was invented by Ph.D. scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. Here's how it works. When you drink, alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a build-up of this byproduct, not dehydration, that's to blame for rough days after drinking. Pre-alcohol produces an enzyme to break this byproduct down. Just remember to make pre-alcohol your first drink of the night, drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best tomorrow. Every time I have pre-alcohol before drinks, I notice the difference the next day.

Even after a night out, I can confidently plan on running or lifting weights without worry. Ready to try it out? Go to zbiotics.com slash wad now. You'll get 15% off your first order when you use code Wad at checkout. Plus, it's backed with a 100% money-back guarantee so there's no risk. Subscriptions are also available for maximum consistency. Remember to head to Zbiotics.com slash Wad and use the code Wad at checkout for 15% off. What a Day is brought to you by Delete Me.

Delete Me makes it easy, quick, and safe to remove your personal data online at a time when surveillance and data breaches are common enough to make everyone vulnerable. It's easier than ever to find personal information about people online. Having your address, phone number, and family members' names hanging out on the internet can have actual consequences in the actual real world. And it makes everyone vulnerable. With Delete Me, you can protect your personal privacy or the privacy of your business from doxing attacks before sensitive information can be exploited. That's why the New York Times wire cutter has named Delete Me their top pick for data removal services. Have you ever been a victim of identity theft, harassment, doxing? If you haven't, you probably know someone who has.

I definitely do. And Delete Me can help. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now at a special discount for our listeners. Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to joinDelatMe.com slash Wad and use promo code Wad at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to Join DeleteMe.com. and enter code Wad at checkout.

That's join deleteme.com slash Wad, code Wad. Here's what else we're following today. Headalines. I want to respond to the fact that our communities feel anxious and fearful. They see this action as unpredictable and a threat to their families. The mayor of Portland, Maine, held at press conference alongside other city leaders on Wednesday to address the increase of immigration and customs enforcement activity. I said in a press release that it officially launched its latest endeavor,

Operation Catch of the Day, across Maine this week. I have to assume the person who comes up with names for these operations is making like $500,000 a year. The agency boasted that it's already arrested some of the, quote, worst of the worst. Portland mayor Mark Dian was calm, cool, and collected Wednesday when telling his constituents he respects their right to protest. But Portland City Councilor, Wes Pellateer, didn't mince words.

I want to be really clear, this is a war of terror that's being waged on our city by the federal government. Which is funny, because Department of Homeland Security spokesperson, Trisha McLaughlin said in their statement, quote, under President Trump and Secretary Nome, we are no longer allowing criminal illegal aliens to terrorize American citizens. Makes sense. We have ICE to do that. If this were set as a precedent, it seems to me just thinking big picture, what goes around comes around, all of the current president's appointees would likely be removed for cause on January 20th, 2029 if there's a Democratic president or January 20th, 233. And then we're really at at will removal.

On Wednesday, Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh mulled over the potential consequences of letting Trump fire Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook. A majority of the justices didn't seem satisfied with Trump's argument that he could boot Cook over mortgage fraud claims, and the Supreme Court appears poised to hand President Trump an L on the matter. By law, presidents can only fire Fed governors for cause, a safeguard meant to protect the bank from political pressure. What a novel idea. But the White House says it clears that bar, alleging Cook improperly listed two primary residences on mortgage paperwork. She denies the allegations and there have been no criminal charges.

Several justices signaled major concerns that approving the firing and setting that as a precedent could seriously undermine the Federal Reserve's independence. This as Trump has repeatedly attacked the central bank for not cutting interest rates faster. He argues that it should act more aggressively to drive down borrowing costs and juicy economy. I argue that we should not do that because I do not like economic crises. Today, former Special Counsel Jack Smith is expected to appear in front of the House Judiciary Committee with the lights on and the camera's rolling. Smith is one of Trump's main enemies.

He oversaw two major federal cases against him. One about attempts to overturn the 2020 election and another accusing Trump of mishandling classified government documents after leaving office, i.e., he kept top secret files in his Mar-a-Lago bathroom. Back in December, Smith spent nearly nine hours in a closed-door deposition with Republicans.

In the released transcript, Smith said he could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump led a criminal scheme to overturn the election and was, quote, the most culpable figure involved. I can already hear Trump muttering. Deranged Jack Sick Smith. He's a sick son of a bitch. You get it?

You get how Trump added sick as a middle name? You know, because he's sick. It's very clever. The new testimony comes as Trump is trying to block the Justice Department from releasing Smith's final report. Trump's lawyers argue the report would quote, irreparably harm him, our poor porcelain president. If you've been texting and emailing and tweeting and DMing your elected representatives to, you know, do something about all of this.

First, good. But second, it might be nice to also write some letters. Not just to members of Congress who seem to have forgotten that they have jobs, but to your friends and your family and I don't know. Your former college roommate who now lives in Thailand for reasons you've never really understood. That's because handwritten letter writing is for a very written letter writing is reportedly experiencing a resurgence with adults and children alike. Pinterest's 2026 trend forecast found searches for snail mail gifts have surged 110%,

while interest in pen pals is also way up. Hands-on hobbies like letter writing, typewriter clubs, and TikTok communities devoted to calligraphy and wax seals are driving a revival of old school communication. Nostologic, sure, but these activities also offer a way to unplug, slow down, and create more deliberate, meaningful connections in a world that's anything but. Plus, you can write really mean things in letters, just like you can in an email to elected officials. And that's the news. Before we go, a new episode of Polar Coaster with Dan Pfeiffer is out now.

If you like Dan's analysis or love to nerd out on polls, take a break from doom scrolling and subscribe to Friends of the Pod to listen. In this episode, Dan breaks down how unpopular Trump's escalating threats to annex Greenland are. with polling showing that only 8% of people support using military force. He goes over the latest polls on Democratic primaries and key Senate races, including Michigan and Texas. Dan explains why who we nominate and the political environment really matter if we want to win. He also answers questions from Friends of the Pod subscriber, so subscribing gives you a chance to have your question answered. Subscribing also helps us reach more people, helps you back independent progressive media,

and keeps news and analysis free from big tech influence. Go to crooket.com slash friends to learn more. That's all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, contemplate new data showing the political leanings of different NFL positions and tell your friends to listen. And if you're into reading, and not just about how defensive backs and running backs

are more likely to be Democrats, while kickers, punters, and long snappers are more likely to be Republicans, like me. What a day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at Crooked.com. slash subscribe. I'm Jane Koston. And so in short, the less actual violence you face in the sport of football, the more likely you are to be a Republican. Interesting. What a day is a production of Crooked Media. It's recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producers are Emily Four

and Chris Alport. Our producer is Caitlin Plummer. Our video editor is Joseph Tutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had a production help today from Ethan Oberman, Greg Walters, and Matt Burke. Our senior Our producer is Erica Morrison and our senior vice president of News and Politics is Adrian Hill. Our theme music is by Kyle Murdoch and Jordan Cantor. We had helped today from the Associated Press. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East.