The shutdown backlash is shifting from Democratic anger to sustained Republican liability.
Trump’s Epstein cover-up—not the underlying allegations—is emerging as the core source of political damage.
The narrative is slipping from Trump’s hands as independents and “double-haters” break decisively away.
The mood between Alex and Joe turns sharply analytical as both argue that the shutdown was always an Epstein shutdown—a blockade meant to stop the files from surfacing—and its collapse has left Trump in a political trap he can’t climb out of. They underline that the damage isn’t tied to Epstein’s crimes, but to Trump’s frantic efforts to hide the truth. The weakness is already showing in the Senate, where Republicans are peeling off on health-care extensions they refused to touch just weeks ago. That shift mirrors the polling movement they point to, with independents breaking blue by overwhelming margins in Virginia and New Jersey and eroding Trump’s leverage across the map. Taken together, it signals the early emergence of a “lame-duck Trump presidency” long before November.
Tune in to this sharp, unfiltered breakdown with Joe and Alex.
Bannon’s Third Trump Coup
Steve Bannon has a new prophecy, delivered with that familiar, scabrous mix of menace and mysticism: Donald Trump will be president again in 2028. He said it straight to The Economist, with the added flourish that there’s a “plan” … one so secret and brilliant it apparently outruns the plain text of the Twenty-Second Amendment and the limits of reality itself.
