Trump's 'psychological disfigurement' prevents him from seeing midterm reality

0:00This is Steve Covino from Covino and Rich. Quick trivia fellas, every guy listening is contestant. Answer honestly to yourself. You got a belly in a little chest, gassed by the afternoon, no drive left in the tank, you lack that confidence and mental edge. Those are classic signs that your testosterone's been sliding. And nothing drags it down faster than extra weight. So why not take matters into your own hands? Shrip off the weight that tanks your testosterone with Bioma, GLP1 booster. Every serving is packed with science-packed ingredients that crank up your natural GLP1 production. Visit bioma.health slash GLP1 and use code CR Show for 15% off your first order. Right now at Subway, try the 499 Sub of the day. Get a different 6 inch sub every day for just 499 each, like meatball marinara on Mondays, tuna on Tuesdays, and the BMT on Saturdays. It's a different 6 inch sub every day, packed with protein and your choice of chopped veggies for just 499 each. Or make it a meal with chips and a drink for just $2 more.

1:00But hurry, it's only for a limited time, and only its subway. At participating restaurants, prices higher in Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii and on third party delivery, add-ons, taxes, and fees for delivery additional. It is 33 days until the midterm elections. Republicans are doomed to spend every single one of those days caught in the political catch 22 that is belonging to a party led by Donald Trump. You can't be elected as a Republican on November 3rd, unless you demonstrate full and public feel-teet of Donald Trump at all times in all matters. That's the rule of the cult. But in a lot of places in America, you also can't get elected if you're standing next to the guy who's losing an illegal war of choice to Iran while gas prices skyrocket and mortgage rates go up and healthcare gets cut, betray Trump, though, and you're out. Stand beside him, and you're also probably out. In a new AP Nork poll that was released today, Trump faces 69% disapproval, a record for him,

2:00across both terms. But this is the other big problem for Republicans. Trump will not acknowledge this reality. 65% of Americans say higher prices are because of Trump's policies and they're right. 69% of Americans, including 52% of Republicans, say Trump's handling of the cost of living has been worse than expected. It's been bad, I don't know, worse than expected. What did you expect from this guy? We've known him for a long time. These numbers are bad, they're not bad. They're not bad at all. They're toxic. So Republicans are trying to discreetly distance themselves from the president. One Florida Republican edited his website's answer to an age-old campaign question. Right, why run for public office? Earlier this summer, Mike Beltran's site said he wanted to quote, stand with President Trump to finish making America great again. It's according to the Washington Post. Now the website reads that Beltran felt called to public service and is running to be a champion for lower costs, lower taxes, and increased healthcare access.

3:02Trump's gone from the website. One senior Republican involved in a house battleground race told Politico the White House quote called me four times now to see if we want Trump to come. And I've said no. Even the White House understands Trump's toxicity. One toxicity, one White House official told MSNOW that Trump was visiting a swing district. If he were visiting a swing district, it would be quote a net negative for the candidate there. The close to the race, the more the Republican candidate is trying to break from President Trump. This is actually quite a normal political dynamic. The president's party almost always loses seats in the midterms and most presidents understand that dynamic. But Donald Trump doesn't. And therein lies the catch. Trump wants this election in which he is not on the ballot to be all about him. So what I really want you to do is pretend please that I'm on the ballot. Just come and vote at so important. Now in a political environment where Republicans need the president

4:04to be low key, you simply can't help himself. Last month, Trump's solution to lagging GOP enthusiasm was a never before scene midterm convention, which the Republican party will fully called a Trump a Paloza, was held in Texas with Republicans there facing tougher election odds than usual in the race for both governor and Senate. Trump said the convention helped the Senate candidate can taxed in a lot. How does Paxton feel about it? Well, according to audio leaked from the New York Times, Paxton said at a fundraiser shortly after the convention, quote, to be honest with you, the numbers, when we did that convention, it dropped our numbers. Everybody's numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good. End quote, Ken Paxton. And this is quite a story. When Ken Paxton doesn't want Donald Trump campaigning with him, you know something's wrong. The problem is the big guy doesn't do numbers. When Trump was asked about his low poll numbers in an interview with Time Magazine, he responded, quote, they're fake numbers. I would beat anyone running today by 20 points.

5:07Your numbers you have are fake. The pollsters are corrupt, end quote. Of course, the pollsters are corrupt. The pollsters are corrupt. Your numbers are fake. 20 points. Joining me now is John Hartwood. He's a political columnist for Zeteo and a former White House correspondent and an old friend of mine. You have to talk a little bit here, buddy, because I don't even understand anymore. I don't know what to say. It's wild. Donald Trump is delusional. And this whole, the point here is that presidents understand that in a midterm election, some candidates might want you there and a lot would rather you not be there. He doesn't care. He's going to just come in and rain on anybody's parade. The problem, Ali, is that Donald Trump is trapped in a fantasy world in which he is doing a great job. He's fantastic. The economy's great. So at a time when people, as you just showed, by way more than two to one, disapprove of his presidency, disapprove of his handling of the economy, you know, on that approved disapprove.

6:07The number of people who strongly disapprove of Donald Trump is more than three times the number of people who strongly approve him. That is a toxic number. But his psychological disfigurement will not allow him to feel the voter's pain, which, as Bill Clinton once said, he can't acknowledge that things are going bad and he's going to fix them. He has to pretend that he has fixed them. And it's a very, very bad situation for Republicans. You know, when I interviewed him, Ali, in 2015, and he was saying then all sorts of ridiculous things that were obviously not true, didn't stop him from winning the presidency. But I asked him in that interview, I said, what are you going to do when voters pull back the curtain as they did in the Wizard of Oz and say, there is no Wizard of Oz behind that curtain. There's just a guy talking into a microphone and he says, I'll never let that happen. Well, it's happening right now. This is Steve Kovino from Kovino and Rich. All right, quick round of trivia. Before we get back into the show,

7:08but we're doing it differently this time. Every guy listening right now, you're contestant. No buzzers, no calling in. Just answer honestly to yourself. Here we go. You got a belly and a little chest, that won't go away no matter what you try. Gast by the middle of the afternoon, no drive left in the tank. And lastly, you lack that confidence in mental edge. Fellowes, here's the thing. Those are classic signs that your testosterone's been sliding. And nothing drags it down faster than extra weight. The good news, emerging research suggests that getting rid of it may actually be more effective than TRT. So why not take matters into your own hands? Strip off the weight that tanks your testosterone with Bioma GLP1 booster. Every serving is packed with science back and third party tested ingredients that crank up your natural GLP1 production. So you can enjoy a leaner physique, surging energy and increased drive. Visit bioma.health slash GLP1 and use code CRShow to get 15% off your first order. That's bioma.health slash GLP1

8:08code CRShow for 15% off. Rubric is the security and AI operations company. Build for what happens after an attack hits. Not just the moments before. AI has turned the threat landscape into quicksand, moving too fast for any human to fully predict. That's why an agentic cyber resilience platform matters. Automated recovery, clean data, a business that keeps moving no matter what hits. One platform, not a patchwork of stitch together tools and gaps. Don't wait for the next attack. Secure and accelerate your business at rubric.com. Again, rubric.com. Nobody does it better than Regent Seven Seas Cruises. Enjoy all inclusive unrivaled luxury with unlimited sure excursions, indulgent cuisine, personalized service and more, aboard spacious all sweet ships. Visit rssc.com to experience the unrivaled. Big time. So John, one of the things, I'm in DC right now, and unlike Los Angeles or Minneapolis, Donald Trump deployed a military national guard here

9:09on the pretext that crime was a problem. And now he talks about the fact that there's zero crime in Washington. In the time magazine article, he said something it was interesting. The journalist asked him, would you rule out declaring a state of emergency and the lead up to the midterms unless there was widespread violence in the streets? Trump says, I don't rule anything out or in. We'll see. You mean the Insurrection Act? Journalists? Yeah. Trump. No, I've never used it. I could use it. A lot of people think I should use it sometimes. And then he goes on to talk about the amount of crime that has come down by him using the military. So he's conflating two things here. Well, of course, and the very idea that he would invoke the Insurrection Act is absurd. There's no conceivable conditions for that. But when he says, as he said to the time magazine reporters, yes, I could do that. He thinks he could do anything. And he's constantly putting on the table

10:09preposterous ideas and saying, well, I could do that if I wanted to. This is a very, it's actually a dangerous situation for the country because the president of the United States is not in touch with reality. And yet he's the president of the United States with the nuclear button and all that goes with it. So Democrats are feeling very, very good right now. They've got the prospect of winning both the House and the Senate. The polls indicate that both of those things are likely. But this is a president who you can't rule out him taking extreme actions to try to protect himself because he's compelled to try to do that. So there are things he can do. Obviously, there's the intimidation factor of either FBI agents or DHS agents being in polling places, which they might justify on the basis of there being criminal violations or immigration violations. But that serves to be an intimidation tactic. So that could we can turn out in the elections. There are, there's a fact that Trump will make allegations

11:11on in various states that non-citizens voted, which, as you know, is really not much of an issue in America. The worry now is that, and Mike Johnson has demonstrated this before with Adelaide Grahava in Arizona when she won her election and he delayed her swearing in because it was going to end up giving, creating that Epstein problem for them. There's some speculation that Mike Johnson might do that. He might say, well, you know, there's dispute about the outcome of the elections. It's not certified and not seek this new Congress. Is it theoretically possible that Mike Johnson could do that? Yes. Could he make it stick? I do not think so. I think when you're talking about a president with a 31% approval rating, the public opinion, the American public would not allow things to happen. He has less clout with the business community. He's got less clout with the courts. The Supreme Court watches election returns, too. And they're only going to go so far and protecting a guy who is acting way, way outside the norms and the will of the

12:16American public. So I think his capacity to interfere with the election is less than he thinks it is. We saw a court stop some of the intimidation tactics in 2024 and in 2020 as well. Could he try to do it again? Could he send ICE to the polling stations and try to deter Hispanic voters from turning out? Yes, he could try to do that. But I don't think it's going to stick. He's in a position right now, Ali, where he's defending territory in Oklahoma, Texas, Florida, Alaska, Kansas. Democrats have real shots of winning in South Carolina in Nebraska. This is an election where the bottom is falling out for Republicans. He can't stop it from falling out. He doesn't have credibility anymore. People don't. Outside, the sort of hardcore cult, which is reflected in that 31%. Donald Trump has no credibility anymore.

13:18And so he can talk. He can curse at the time magazine reporters and say, all you've asked me is hostile questions. And you haven't asked me this and you haven't asked me that. But he's just culminating. And I don't think that there's a mechanism for him to make positive things happen between now and election day. The one thing voters know is that with our economy, Ali, it's not objectively terrible. We're not in a recession, but everybody in America can see that it's worse because of things that Donald Trump has done. They're directly tied to him. The tariffs, the Iran war, the chaos that's going on. And they see that he's not trying to address their economic problems at a time when he is raking in as much money as he can. The personal corruption is off the charts. This is just a nightmare situation for the Republican Party. Hey, it's Rachel. I am so glad to see you at the end of that clip because this is where I get to tell you about a new way to watch all our clips

14:19and all of our shows and everything on MSNow on your phone or your tablet or your laptop. You can watch things live or recorded. Plus you can ask me and all the other hosts and reporters questions and our weekly live chats. You can go to ms.nailslashmembership or just click below. Thanks. This is Steve Kovino from Kovino and Rich. Quick trivia, fellas. Every guy listening is contestant. Answer honestly to yourself. You got a belly in a little chest, gasped by the afternoon, no drive left in the tank. You lack that confidence and mental edge. Those are classic signs that your testosterone has been sliding and nothing drags it down faster than extra weight. So why not take matters into your own hands? Shrip off the weight that tanks your testosterone with Bioma, GLP1 booster. Every serving is packed with science-packed ingredients that crank up your natural GLP1 production. Visit bioma.health slash GLP1 and use code CRShow for 15% off your first order.