The Broadside | Trump’s Presidency Is Going Down in Flames! (But Not Really)

The Democrats and the MSM (sorry for the redundancy) want you to think that support for Trump is in serious trouble.

Oh noes! The liberal progressive anti-Trump networks conducted some polls!

Fortunately, even if his numbers have dropped, his base remains strongly committed to his platform.

The liberal media keeps pushing its narrative about Donald Trump’s unpopularity, but the numbers tell a different story. Trump’s base is more passionate and committed than Obama’s ever was, and we’ve got the data to prove it.

Mark Mitchell from Rasmussen Reports dropped a truth bomb on X today, sharing a chart that liberals won’t want you to see. The data shows Trump’s Approval Index — the difference between those who strongly approve and strongly disapprove — consistently beating Barack Obama’s numbers. 

The key here is to not place your hopes in the polls. Instead, watch for what Trump’s strategies produce. Is he going to be perfect? Nope. (For example, some are blaming him for Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberals federal election victory yesterday.)

Keep a couple of things in mind. First, it’s only been 100 days and Trump has been keeping his promises to kick illegals out of the country, to rebalance trade, and to bring businesses and manufacturing back to American shores. He’s standing up to China, he’s brokering peace between Russia and Ukraine, and he’s put Iran on notice. He’s slapped down the Houthis in Yemen, he’s exerting tremendous influence on control of the Panama Canal, and he’s quietly still working on an agreement with Greenland.

In other words, he’s putting America first.

Second, remember that the MSM polls are skewed liberal. The better polls are Rasmussen, which was pretty accurate about the 2024 presidential election. The MSM is no longer favored by this White House and is being dealt with like the partisan hacks that they are.

Mitchell accused legacy polling firms and the mainstream media of working together to paint a misleading picture. 

“The mainstream media on top of that is gonna be this information gatekeeping layer,” he said, citing Quinnipiac’s poll from a month ago showing Trump at negative 12 points — a number that was heavily promoted in the media despite being completely ridiculous. 

“Well, their numbers haven’t moved, and so now it’s, um, they’re gonna use Reuters. They’re gonna use ABC Washington, you know, negative 13, negative 12, negative 14,” Mitchell added. “Those are all new. They all dropped over the weekend.”

He even joked that the pollsters might be congratulating each other behind the scenes. “I wonder if they’re, like, slapping each other on the butts and saying, ‘Good game,’ after this coordinated, like, dump of polling,” he said. “I think that’s probably what it is.”

Don’t fret when you see a negative poll about Trump. Give him time to work.

The Broadside | Make it a Good Friday

Isn’t it refreshing to have a president who at least respects the Christian faith, even if we sometimes wonder just where he himself stands with Jesus Christ? I think some of what Trump does in defending the faith is part of his MAGA agenda, since he and any historian worth their degree knows that our Founders and the early republic reflected Judeo-Christian beliefs. Our entire system of government rests on the model of biblical law.

He has risen indeed!

Have a great weekend.

The Broadside | Your GOP “Representatives” Just Tried to Stab You in the Back

Speaker Johnson was all set to put forward a three-month Continuing Resolution that is crammed full of things Americans didn’t vote for, including the Global Engagement Center (GEC), which has been illegally censoring conservatives for years. He was literally ready to give them more money and another year of life so they’d be in place when Trump took office.

You know what else was in there? A pay raise for members of Congress. But not a cost-of-living adjustment, or some “merit” increase (LOL). No, they were going to give themselves a FORTY-PERCENT RAISE.

These criminal do-nothings work a part-time job and were ready to make themselves millionaires over their time of service by jumping their pay from the current $174,000/yr. to $243,000/yr.

For what!?!

All these cretins do is hold ineffective hearings (basically show trials without any convictions), make speeches that no one listens to, and write strongly worded letters.

Can anyone tell me what positive legislation they’ve crafted recently to give me more freedom and let me keep more of my money?

Anyone?

Bueller?

In a statement shared with the Washington Examiner, House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) office defended the GEC provision.

“Speaker Johnson has killed multiple efforts to pass a 5-year reauthorization of the GEC during the past year, including as recently as the National Defense Authorization Act last week,” a spokesperson for Johnson said. “This bill ensures the incoming Trump Administration has the maximum ability and authority to determine how to handle the office, its authorities, and funding.”

According to a congressional source familiar with the matter, the GEC provision was a demand from Senate Democrats in exchange for Republicans getting a provision aiming to protect small businesses from certain fines approved by the Biden administration under a bill called the Corporate Transparency Act.

Fortunately, president-elect Trump, vice-president-elect Vance, Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy all called them out and it looks like the bill is dead. That’s a good thing, because our elected representatives—and “we the people”—are beginning to realize that it won’t be business as usual anymore.

We’re tired of getting ripped off and told to shut up by swamp creatures.

This guy gets it:

Throw Speaker Johnson out—he’s a weak leader. We need a bulldog with a spine like Trump in that chair.

The Broadside | Trump’s Boast Is Coming True (Again) and We’re All Happier For it

Remember when during his first campaign in 2016 Trump predicted that there would be so much winning that we’d get sick of it? “We will have so much winning if I get elected, that you may get bored with winning.”

Salon, from which that quote is taken, dismissed it as so much bluster. But as we’ve come to learn, Trump seems to embody winning. And before he’s even taken office for his second term, there is a great amount of winning.

His approval numbers during his transition are exponentially higher than during 2016.

“Take a look here,” Enten began, pointing to data from November 2016. At that time, Trump’s net approval during his transition was only “plus one point.” Enten emphasized, “That was well, well, well below the historical norm.” Fast forward to today, and Trump’s approval during this transitional phase has skyrocketed to +18—a remarkable 17-point increase. “The bottom line is this: if eight years ago Americans were lukewarm on Donald Trump, at this particular point, they’re giving him much more of the benefit of the doubt,” Enten noted. “A lot more Americans are in love with this transition.”

All of the outstanding legal assaults on Trump have been dismissed, including Jack Smith’s two cases. The totally made-up documents case that ignores the Presidential Records Act, in which the feds raided Mar-a-Lago and tossed Melania’s underwear drawer, was in turn tossed by the federal judge overseeing the case because of Smith’s illegal appointment by Merrick Garland. Plus, Smith dropped his January 6 “Insurrection” case against Trump.

Nevertheless, in a filing on Monday, Smith noted that he was dropping the charges without prejudice, meaning that he or someone with the notion to continue the weaponization of the law against political opponents, could reanimate them. 

Then, there’s the stock market up and renewed optimism in the air as restaurants, always a bellwether for how the economy is doing, experience a surge of customers.

Financial markets rallied early Monday as stocks and bonds positively responded to President-elect Donald J. Trump‘s announcement that he is naming macro and hedge fund manager Scott Bessent as his Secretary of the Treasury. Bessent, the founder of Key Square Group, is perceived as a stabilizing influence anticipated to effectively manage the $28 trillion Treasuries market. Dow futures were up nearly one percent before the opening bell. Meanwhile, S&P 500 futures had risen 0.5 percent.

One of the most shocking results of a new poll shows that nearly 3 in 4 Americans support Trump’s plan to deport foreigners who are here illegally. That’s a huge majority and a solid mandate.

Quick Hit:

A CBS News poll reveals that 73% of Americans, including a majority across racial lines, believe President-elect Donald Trump should focus on repatriating illegal migrants. More than half also support a nationwide program to deport all illegal immigrants.

Key Details:

  • CBS News/YouGov poll shows 45% of Americans view deportations as a “high priority,” with 28% considering it a “medium priority.” Only 27% say it’s “not a priority.”
  • 57% back a national program to locate and deport all illegal immigrants.
  • 74% of whites, 70% of blacks, and 69% of Hispanics support making deportations a priority.

Diving Deeper:

As President-elect Donald Trump prepares to take office, a CBS News poll conducted by YouGov shows that deportation policy is a top concern for many Americans. The survey of 2,232 adults indicates a near-consensus, with 73% calling for prioritizing the removal of illegal migrants.

Haitians in Springfield, Ohio, are already self-deporting from that city to (most-likely) sanctuary cities in other states. Not that that will protect them from being evicted from the country, since Tom Holman, Trump’s newly appointed border czar, has made clear.

Mexico and Canada have already responded to Trump’s threats to levy tariffs of 25% on goods imported from those countries. Mexico’s president has already agreed to stop caravans of migrants.

There’s lots more, but I think Benny Johnson sums it up nicely.

I also feel optimistic about Trump’s election and what he will accomplish over the next four years. I’m praying that it will be a start of a resurgence in American prosperity and the dawn of a new “morning” in America that will last more than his term in office.

The Broadside | It Really Was a Landslide Victory

It’s official: President-elect Donald J. Trump turned in a landslide performance on Tuesday by winning 312 electoral votes, but also winning the popular vote, something that a Republican hasn’t done since George Bush did it in 2004. It’s also the first time Trump won the popular vote out of his three campaigns for president.

Now the Democrats will agree that Trump is a legitimate president because he won both the popular vote and the electoral vote. Every time a Republican has won the presidency but lost the popular vote, Dems go on a tirade about how we should elect a president with the popular vote and respect the “will of the people.” I’m looking at you, Hillary Clinton.

Trump won all seven swing states: Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, North Carolina, and the three states making up the so-called “Blue Wall” of Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.

Trump has a mandate and he’s got the Senate. We’re waiting to see if Republicans keep the House —they’re within striking distance of the 218 seats needed.

If Trump runs the trifecta (presidency, Senate, House) then he can pretty quickly enact his agenda without resorting to a bunch of executive orders. We want our changes, like border security, enshrined in law that cannot be easily undone.

Speaking of agendas, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has shared with us what Trump has asked him to do.

The Broadside | “This is the Last Chance, Man”

Today’s the day. This is it. This is the day we’ve been waiting four years for.

If you haven’t voted, go out and vote today. Like, now. Go.

It goes without saying that we have to go all out to win this. If you can vote early and have not done so, do it today. Now. Don’t wait till tomorrow. Get it done. If you can only vote tomorrow, go vote early. Get it done, get it out of the way. Who knows what surprises lurk in the next few hours? Fire, flood, plague of frogs – nothing is off the table. We are in the Land of the Black Swans.

As inspiration, watch this clip of Elon Musk with Joe Rogan (who endorsed Trump yesterday).

It’s that serious.

All the arguments have been made. You have three choices: vote Trump, vote Harris, or stay home. If you stay home, you don’t get to complain about the state of the country. Same is true if you vote for Harris, except no one (not just you) will be allowed to complain about the state of the country.

I’ll be watching returns tonight and reporting tomorrow morning.

Let’s hope it’s good news.

The Broadside | The Signs Are Looking Good, But Don’t Relax

It’s the day before perhaps the most consequential presidential election of my life. We’re either going to repudiate the insanity of Obama’s third term or we’re going to march into a thousand years of darkness. OK, that might be overstating it a bit, but if anyone but Trump takes the helm in January, I’m afraid that any chance to resurrect America as founded will be gone for a long time—perhaps for good.

Think of it as the last chance to grab a dead branch sticking out of the riverbank as you’re swept along with the current toward the falls just around the bend up ahead.

While the race is a virtual dead heat, there is some reason for hope.

As for the battleground states, the newest poll has Trump ahead in all seven swing states, including Wisconsin. If that wasn’t good enough news for you, his lead is outside the margin of error in three states: Arizona, North Carolina, and Nevada.

In North Carolina and Georgia, Trump holds modest leads, outpacing Harris by 3.4 and 2.5 percentage points, respectively. His biggest leads are in Arizona and Nevada, where his advantage reaches 6.5 and 5.5 points. In Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania, the race is closer, but Trump maintains slight leads, with margins ranging from 1.0 to 1.8 points. Overall, while the race remains tight in some states, Trump has managed to secure a consistent edge over Harris throughout these battleground regions.

Then there’s this take:

On top of that, Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist, thinks the pollsters are missing a key dynamic in the race because it has remained so tight over the last couple of months.

I think the pollsters are getting this wrong. We’re all missing something, because they’re giving us the same poll over and over again. There isn’t even statistical variation. You know, 95% confidence level means that 5% of the time you’re going to get a crappy poll. We hardly ever see that.

It’s like they’re telling us we’re watching a basketball game where every play’s a jump ball. Somebody’s missing something. What I think they’re missing is a massive shift in voter registration underneath all of this. 31 states have voter registration by party. 30 of them in the past four years have seen movement toward Republicans. Miami-Dade County is now voting more Republican.

Iowa was +1 Republican. It’s now +10. And yet we’re getting these surveys that I think are off base. Somebody is missing something. I think there’s, I’m not going to call it a wave, but I think there’s a wavelet out there of Republican enthusiasm and registration. If I register to vote Republican, whether I’m switching or new, what am I going to do?

This all bodes well for Trump. But as I’ve said before, I don’t trust the polling, I don’t trust the Democrats, and I won’t feel any relief until Trump takes the oath in January.

If you haven’t voted, get out there tomorrow and vote like Trump is down and your vote is the one that will put him over the top.

The Broadside | When the Democrats Tell You What They Think of You, Believe Them

Remember when Barack Hussein Obama called citizens of middle America bitter clingers?

Remember when Hillary Clinton labeled half of Trump’s supporters as irredeemable “deplorables”?

That was a moment I remember well because I was a Trump supporter by that time and, even if I hadn’t been, I sure wasn’t supporting her. I had never heard a presidential candidate outright smear those they are asking to lead.

Joe Biden must’ve been taking notes, because he had his own “deplorable” moment yesterday.

“The only garbage I see floating out there is his supporters,” he says. When the Democrats tell you what they think of you, believe them.

That includes the hysterical claims from Harris and her flying monkeys in the media that Trump is Hitler and his followers are Nazis. I listened to her final speech last night for ten minutes before I couldn’t take it anymore.

She lied throughout her propagandizing from the ellipse in DC, where Trump held his rally on January 6, 2020. She’s in a razor-thin race and instead of going to a swing state she needs to win, she stays in DC and conjures up the specter of January 6.

Because that event hasn’t been litigated enough!

Not even five minutes into her speech she lied that Trump “sent an armed mob” into the capital. He didn’t order them to attack the capital, and no one was armed. The only people who died that day were two women who were killed by capital police.

Kamala lied throughout her propaganda. She claimed, against all evidence, that Trump would outlaw abortion nationwide (he’s promised to veto a federal abortion ban), that he would limit IVF (he’s actually pledged the opposite), and told us that Project 2025 is Trump’s. It isn’t and he’s disavowed all ties to it.

Trump spoke with Sean Hannity on Fox News yesterday to talk about his policy positions. (For the record, I am not a fan of Hannity’s. I can’t listen to his self-aggrandizing monologues—even during guest interviews—and I don’t think he’s all that rigorous an interviewer.)

Did we learn anything new from this latest set of comments?

Maybe a couple of things. First, I thought Trump would’ve see the economy as the number one concern, but he told Hannity that immigration is the biggest issue. He then said that Kamala let “21 million people” into the country. That’s a bigger number than is usually bandied about, which is about 10 million. I actually think that the 21 million is a more accurate number. Frankly, I’ll bet that it’s even bigger than that.

He also said that more than 300 former generals, admirals and former cabinet members have signed an endorsement of him. Surprisingly, I hadn’t heard that yet.

The group, organized by former Trump national security adviser Robert O’Brien and former National Security Council chief of staff Alex Gray, wrote in a letter that “securing peace” is “the legacy of Trump.”

The signers, numbering more than 300, include former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who ran against Trump in this year’s Republican primaries, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and former National Intelligence Director John Ratcliffe.

Trump also said something interesting that I hadn’t heard from him before. He was talking about this administration’s weaponization of the DOJ against conservatives and he said, “They go after Catholics; evangelicals will be next.”

That’s a little foreboding. I think we’re already in their sights, but does he know something we don’t?

He spent time listing his achievements, like building 500 miles of border wall; delivering the “largest tax cuts in the history of our country”; and declaring that China and everybody else respected us when he was president.

He also said that Elon Musk would “tackle waste, fraud and abuse in our budgets,” cutting costs and saving us 2 trillion dollars. Now that’s something I’d like to see!

It reminds me that I’m not just voting for Trump; I’m voting for Elon Musk, Tulsi Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the other cast of characters that he’s pulled together. It’s quite a politically diverse set of smart people. The Democrats have nothing like it even though they’re the ones screaming about diversity all the time.

Hannity brought it around to how I started this post: everyone is calling Trump a Nazi and a fascist and Mussolini and Stalin; he’s survived two assassination attempts; Iran has hit squads in the U.S. who want to take him out. “This is the environment we’re in” Hannity says.

Trump, never one to miss an opportunity to boast, says, “they only go after consequential presidents. I’m very consequential.” LOL.

Frankly, I think he’s right. And the Leftist anti-Americans have no answer for him other than to rachet up the evil rhetoric to whip their minions into a frothy frenzy that they can use to burn the country down should Trump win. Just watch what MSNBC did during his Madison Square Garden rally:

Shameful. You really don’t hate the mainstream media enough.

The Broadside | “Jesus is Lord” is Embraced by MAGA But Also Remember “Jesus is Lord” Means Christians Are Independent of Party

Yesterday I wrote about my caution with receiving Tulsi Gabbard into the Republican Party. On the one hand I welcome her. She’s intelligent, authentic, and seems like a genuinely nice person who’s guided by common sense. On the other hand, she’s been a Democrat for 20 years and an Independent for two, and she has a terrible record on abortion, gun rights, and fiscal policy. Time will tell exactly what she brings to the party (see what I did there?).

Today I have a similar caution with respect to the recent kerfluffle over pro-Jesus comments being shouted in a Harris and in a Trump event and how the two handled it.

First, Harris: “Oh you guys are at the wrong rally.”

Here’s the same moment filmed from a different angle, where you can see the person who yells about Jesus being Lord and Christ being King being kicked out of the rally.

Note that Kamala mocks the students—a “sick burn” if you will—and the crowd immediately laughs and applauds her one-liners. Setting aside the fact that shouting while someone is speaking is rude and disruptive, Dr. Ben Carson made the point that Kamala didn’t have time to prepare an answer … she just said what was on her heart.

A day or so later, JD Vance was speaking at a Trump/Vance rally, and again, someone shouted “Jesus is King!” Here’s how Vance handled it:

A stark contrast to Kamala’s response, no? And then, Donald Trump weighed in on the exchanges: “In our movement, we love Christians, we welcome believers, and we embrace followers of Jesus.”

It’s heartening to hear that the MAGA movement embraces believers; as Christians, we should always count it a blessing when those in authority—and in the culture at large—have favorable attitudes towards us. But here’s where I think we should be cautious about being embraced by either political party.

We owe our allegiance to only one Man, Jesus Christ, and it is too easy to get caught up in putting our trust in a political leader or a political party to do the work of reforming a culture’s moral makeup. It cannot and will not be done through laws or other political means.

We certainly can vote for politicians who support policies that align with Christian principles and obedience. But as we’ve seen, politics follows culture and as the culture decays, Christians are at risk of being demonized (ironically) as what’s holding the culture back.

But once we surrender any of our dependence on God to a political party, we can be played by that party. Be thankful for the support we have from a major political party but maintain your independence as a Christian so that you don’t allow yourself to be lulled into a false sense of security just because a political party embraces your faith.

Keep God first. Then family and country.

The Broadside | Tulsi Gabbard: “I’m proud to stand here with you and announce that I am joining the Republican Party.”

This is truly historic because she was a Democrat candidate for president just four years ago, having served as a Democrat in the Hawaii Legislature and then in the House from 2013 to 2021, as the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee from 2013 to 2016 and as a combat veteran.

The first Hindu member of the US Congress, she left the Democrats in 2022, saying they were an “elitist cabal of warmongers driven by cowardly wokeness.” While I welcome her to the Republican Party, I’m a bit cautious.

Part of that caution is because, as I’ve written before, I don’t trust either of the parties in Congress. They’re effectively a UniParty, separated only by the degree by which they want to take my money and restrict my freedom.

Plus, Tulsi had been a lifelong Democrat. Just because she has switched parties doesn’t mean she’s now a conservative.

Gabbard’s most recent endorsements and ratings reflect something other than conservatism. In the area of gun control, Gabbard has a 0% rating from both the National Rifle Association and National Shooting Sports Foundation. In recent years, she has publicly supported bans on assault weapons, among other legislation supported by the gun control lobby.

Regarding abortion, Gabbard received a 100% rating from the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and 90% from NARAL Pro-Choice America, both in 2020. She received a 0% rating from both the National Right to Life and Susan B. Anthony list in the same year.

When it comes to fiscal conservatism, she received an 11% rating from Americans for Prosperity, 7% from Heritage Action for America, and 9% from the Club For Growth, all in 2020.

That’s from an article in 2022.

Maybe Gabbard has moved further to the right than we know. She’s part of Trump’s transition team, along with RFK Jr. (who is most definitely not a conservative or a Republican).

Then again, she’s a smart woman. Why not align herself with a winner like Donald J. Trump since she no longer has a major party to call home? I worry that she may be embraced by Republicans who begin to compromise their principles (if they have any to start with) while in proximity to her.

I welcome her to the party, but let’s wait to see whether she is truly conservative.