Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
Michael Cohen: Greg, great to be here. Thanks for having me.
Cohen: It’s pretty hard for Trump to argue that the polls are rigged against him when pretty much every single poll shows him doing poorly. This is not like two bad polls for Trump. This has been a trend line we’ve seen now basically since February or March. I’m not surprised by it; this is the way Trump lashes out at people and lashes out at bad news against him. But I think it’s pretty obvious that his numbers are bad.
Sargent: It’s worth noting that Trump is actually raging at Fox News as well. He had a bad poll from Fox the other day, and Trump tweeted, “Rupert Murdoch has told me for years that he is going to get rid of his FoxNews, Trump Hating, Fake Pollster, but he has never done so.” So it’s not as if he’s completely insulated from the realities of public opinion. Even Fox News is talking about him starting to slide in their own polling, and his response to even that is to rage and call it fake and rigged and all the rest of it. What do you make of that part of it? If he’s angry at Rupert Murdoch for supposedly trying to hurt him with the wrong kind of polling or a fake pollster, then it’s starting to sound pretty desperate, isn’t it?
Sargent: I just want to bear down on one more aspect of this whole thing. It’s important to note that both the Times and the Post poll find very broad disapproval of Trump’s abuses of power in particular. The Post poll finds majorities think Trump has exceeded his authority and disapprove of his lawless abuses of power on immigration in particular. The Times poll similarly found majorities say Trump has exceeded his powers and disapprove of his handling of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was illegally sent to a prison in El Salvador. So if you step back, what you really have here is Trump’s pollster deceiving him about the true nature of public opinion when it comes to his lawless overreach. I think it’s very likely that his advisers are telling him the public is fully behind the lawlessness—at least some of his advisers, the ones like Stephen Miller, who really want full-blown fascism to emerge here. What do you think?
And then he goes on to great lengths in this interview to say—on more than one occasion—that he always thinks he should abide by and comply with Supreme Court decisions. In fact, two or three times, he says he abides by lower court rulings. And I actually have to say: Give the man his due on this one. By and large, his administration has adhered to the court orders, many of which have gone against them since January 20. They’ve adhered to them on issues like transgender troops in the military. They’ve adhered on issues like birthright citizenship. When they’ve been told to do things, they generally have done it—but not on this case. And I strongly suspect that what’s happening here is he simply doesn’t know that the Supreme Court told him to facilitate the return of Garcia.
Cohen: At one point, he says, Nobody asked me to ask him that question, which was, “Are you going to return Kilmar Abrego Garcia to United States?” It says, to me, that no one asked him to do it, so he didn’t do it. I just genuinely don’t think he’s aware of how the Supreme Court ruled in this particular case. And if that’s true, that’s a little bit terrifying. First of all, it’s that Stephen Miller’s running immigration policy to a much larger degree than even we suspected before, but also it suggests that Trump is simply not aware what is going on around him at the White House. He’s not aware of what decisions Supreme Court is making. And I think we know this about Trump: He’s not the smartest butter knife in the drawer. I think he’s not going to go look at the Supreme Court ruling and see that it rules against him; he’s going to take the word of his aides.
Cohen: I think there’s a lot to that argument and I think it’s quite possible that you’re right about that. But I think ... Let me go back a second. When they refuse to abide by the Supreme Court ruling to facilitate Abrego Garcia’s return, I assume they were doing this because they think this is a winning issue for them on immigration. And if there’s any place they’re going to defy the courts, it’s going to be on immigration and deportation because they think this plays in their favor. Look, the polling suggests it’s not actually; it suggests that this is actually really hurting Trump. But I think the view inside the White House is, This is our issue.
Now, I think that Miller wants the president to take the position that on this issue—on deportation issues—the Supreme Court cannot tell him what to do. And he’s made this argument. He said that the power to conduct foreign relations is unimpeachable and the Supreme Court cannot interfere, which is how Miller interprets the case, the decision—which is also clearly incorrect. So I think you might be right, that he’s stealing him for a moment in which he’s going to continue to violate a court order, continue to ignore the court, and do so, for Trump’s case, out of ignorance.
So if they think that Trump’s not going to abide by his political norm, they might just rule in such a way that gives Trump some political out on this issue. I think it’s a real concern, and maybe that’s what Miller’s trying to accomplish here. To my mind, there is no question that Stephen Miller, not Donald Trump, is driving the stubbornness of the White House in abiding by the Supreme Court order. It’s not Trump doing this. This is Stephen Miller who’s doing this.
Cohen: Yes. Exactly right.
When they abuse their power on immigration and act lawlessly and send people to black sites and snatch people off the streets, the public reacts badly. They’re not seeing it through just the prism of, Oh, Trump is just dealing with illegals. Stephen Miller calculated that they would see it that way, but Americans aren’t seeing it that way. They’re seeing it in terms of the lawlessness. So when the polls show that the lawlessness is unpopular, and when Trump’s own people deceive him about what those polls are showing, they’re essentially trying to get to the place where the lawlessness continues.
Sargent: If the court does say in one form or other, You have to facilitate and effectuate Abrego Garcia’s return, there will come a point where Stephen Miller and those around him that are like-minded are going to want a confrontation with the court. Do you think that’s going to happen? And what happens then?
Part of the problem we’re dealing with here is that ultimately when you have the governing trifecta situation where Republicans control the White House and the House and the Senate, the only real check on them is Republicans. And they’ve shown no inclination to be a check on Trump. So does there come a point when his numbers get worse and they say they have no choice? Maybe. But if I’m a Republican in the vast majority of potential Republicans, I’m in a safe district, right? I’m in a district [where] my biggest risk is of losing a primary, not losing an election to a Democrat. If I’m someone like Thom Tillis, who might be the most vulnerable Republican in the country, what’s a bigger risk to me: losing 2026 to a Democrat or losing a primary to a MAGA Republican? And I can tell you, if Thom Tillis comes out against Trump, you got a primary challenge he’ll almost certainly lose. And I think if you’re Tillis or any other Republican in this situation, your calculation is, I would rather risk losing in 2026 to a Democrat than risk facing a primary that I will definitely lose. And I don’t see any reason to believe that’s going to change.
Cohen: Always a pleasure, Greg. Thanks for having me.
Sargent: You’ve been listening to The Daily Blast with me, your host, Greg Sargent. The Daily Blast is a New Republic podcast and is produced by Riley Fessler and the DSR Network.
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