It’s May 2017. President Donald Trump has just fired FBI Director James Comey. A special counsel investigation is launched into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. Infighting among Trump’s team begins playing out in public.
The 45th president’s polling on approval read thusly at the time:
Washington Post: 36%
Gallup: 38%
Wall Street Journal/NBC News: 39%
Fox News: 40%
This was supposed to be the honeymoon period, of course. But barely more than 100 days into his first term, things were going sideways for Trump. He had no major legislative victories to speak of despite having majorities in the House and Senate.
Fast forward to 2025: Trump 2.0 has a Cabinet that is completely loyal to his agenda. The leaks and internal strife that existed eight years ago mostly do not exist today. And unlike 2017, Democrats don’t have the Russia collusion and special counsel narratives for their allies in the media to focus on 24/7.
But perhaps most importantly, the Blue Team is currently in complete disarray and reflexively opposing Trump on issues that align them with a small majority of the party. They almost all voted against popular bills such as the Laken Riley Act, which provides the Department of Homeland Security more power to detain those here illegally accused of committing theft or violent crime. It’s an 80-20 issue with voters, yet Democrats took the 20% side.
The same goes for a commonsense bill requiring a valid ID when voting — Democrats were almost unanimously opposed to this bill as well. And it also happened with a measure that wouldn’t allow biological men to compete against women in sports, with the self-described party of women shooting that down on Capitol Hill as well.
And then there’s the biggest news item in the cycle for Democrats that isn’t going away anytime soon that may involve not one, but two attempted cover-ups regarding former President Joe Biden.
One cover-up is already certain: the insistence of Biden officials and his family that his cognitive abilities were fine throughout his presidency. This was obviously not the case, especially with the release of the Robert Hur interview tapes, which show Biden often lost and confused, just as he was during his disastrous debate with Trump last June in Atlanta.
Overall, Biden held zero solo press conferences in 2024 — Trump held 35 in the final year of his first term — and over the last two years of his presidency, he held just four Cabinet meetings. For context, Trump has held more Cabinet meetings during the first four months of his second term alone. Biden also spent 40% of his time in office in Delaware, on vacation, or both. The signs were more than obvious, especially when forgetting the names of his own Cabinet members while claiming to have conversations with world leaders who have been dead for years.
The former president’s sudden prostate cancer diagnosis is one that some medical experts have concluded is years old. Yet this was only just announced. The timing of this Stage 4 cancer diagnosis seems meant to distract from the release of a damning book about his presidency.
So the question is: Who exactly ran the country when Biden was allegedly commander in chief? Was it first lady Jill Biden, who sat at the head of the table during Joe Biden’s only Cabinet meeting last year? Was it former President Barack Obama? Former domestic policy director Susan Rice? Former chief of staff Ron Klain? Or just a bunch of different people acting in their own silos?
There absolutely needs to be congressional hearings on this because this is the biggest political story of our lifetimes. It most certainly could have been a national security nightmare given that Biden not only had the nuclear codes, but apparently wasn’t ready for that 2 a.m. emergency call if it came in, per the book.
Trump, meanwhile, is having what could arguably be the best month of his presidency:
New trade deals with China and the United Kingdom have led to a surge in the financial markets and have made back all losses from the beginning of the tariff war.
Two straight reports in March and April showed inflation down to nearly 2%.
Stronger-than-expected job reports show a surge in private sector jobs as the unemployment rate stays just north of 4%.
Ceasefires in Ukraine, Gaza, and between nuclear powers Pakistan and India.
During his recent trip, Middle East nations, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, committed trillions of dollars to investment in the United States.
Sanctions were dropped on Syria as a new government takes over.
And the return of the last American hostage held in Gaza by Hamas, Edan Alexander.
Now, here are Trump’s last four major polls on approval:
Insider Advantage: 55%
Rasmussen: 49%
Morning Consult: 48%
Harvard/Harris: 47%
So Trump went from polling in the mid-to-high 30s in May 2017 to approaching the high 40s to even the 50s in two polls, Insider Advantage and RMG Research, this week. And when peeling the onion off further, 51% of voters now see the economy as “strong,” the first time that number has been in positive territory since early 2021, when Trump left office.
As a limp counter, Democrats are now reportedly actively recruiting “the next Joe Rogan” to counter the right’s dominance in the podcast media space. And no, this isn’t a joke:
“At donor retreats and in pitch documents seen by the New York Times, liberal strategists are pushing the party’s rich backers to reopen their wallets for a cavalcade of projects to help Democrats, as the cliché now goes, ‘find the next Joe Rogan,’” the report reads. “The proposals, the scope of which has not been previously reported, are meant to energize glum donors and persuade them that they can compete culturally with President Trump — if only they can throw enough money at the problem.”
Yes, throw enough money at the problem, great solution. Note: Former Vice President Kamala Harris tried that during her White House run last year, blowing through $1.5 billion in less than 100 days, only to see 89% of counties go more red than blue. Besides, talent isn’t something that a donor retreat and boatloads of cash can conjure up. It must happen organically through word of mouth and viral clips, not something basically created in a lab like the podcast version of former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
It’s also worth noting that Democrats had their next Joe Rogan once. His name? Joe Rogan. He was a former Democrat cast out by his own party during COVID-19.
BIDEN COVERUP MARKS THE END OF THE ‘CONSPIRACY THEORY’ DEFENSE
As Memorial Day weekend approaches in the first year of his second term, Trump is on an absolute roll. His polling is easily the highest it’s ever been during his 52 months in office, going back to January 2017.
And as this is happening, the party that uses a donkey as its mascot continues to embrace jackassery, all while trying to escape a massive Biden cover-up on two fronts that may haunt them for years to come.