We began this segment with MAHA influencer Jillian Michaels reacting to Donald Trump’s February 18, 2026, executive order ramping up the production and distribution of the glyphosate, often sold as the household weed killer Roundup.
Our theme music this week is “Thanks A Lot,” written by Johnny Cash, performed by Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two, and licensed from LickD.
Donald Trump opened the new White House helipad on Monday, absent a press pool boycott. Note the absence of boom mics: video of the event was circulated, but here was no sound. Photo credit: The White House.
In the News:
Last Friday, Chief of Staff Susie Wiles had already left for the weekend when President Donald Trump canceled press pool credentials for MS NOW, CNN, and Politico. Was the president simply left unattended for too long (Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt had just stepped down.) Is he in a rage about repeated failures? The rest of the pool, including Fox News, joined a Trump boycott, depriving the President of his favorite thing: attention. In response, the administration launched a YouTube channel called TRUMP TV. On Monday, all three banned outlets sued in federal court, citing their First and Fifth Amendment rights. Here is the response filed by White House lawyers, characterizing press access to the President as a privilege. That ain’t what the Constitution says, and it ain’t what the judge who blocked the order says; as of Thursday morning, the White House continued to enforce the ban, lifting it that afternoon.
What else happens when the grownups leave Washington? 760,000 Americans lose their health coverage! Vice President JD Vance explained at a Tuesday press conference that these people were “fraudulently enrolled” in the ACA; the administration is now looking at over 400,000 more Americans who require “additional verification.” An HHS report from earlier this year estimated that half of the 12 million people who bought their policies through ACA exchanges were ineligible. One million Americans had already been dropped from their health care after Donald Trump took office; Vance projects that additional cuts will save $2.2 billion. Democrats released a plan that makes restoring healthcare a priority.
In a follow up to last week’s story about Donald Trump Jr.’s Big Fat Russian wedding, which at least one observer has called a “counterintelligence nightmare,” the Trump administration claims that all funds have been repaid. Senator Bill Cassidy wants evidence, and Senator John Curtis of Utah has called for a Judiciary Committee investigation. They are both Republicans.
Your hosts:
Claire Potter is a historian of politics and media, a writer, a podcaster, and the sole author and editor of the Political Junkie Substack. Her most recent book is Political Junkies: From Talk Radio to Twitter, How Alternative Media Hooked Us on Politics and Broke Our Democracy (Basic Books, 2020), and she is currently writing a biography of feminist journalist Susan Brownmiller.
Neil J. Young is a historian of religion and politics, a journalist, and a former co-host of the Past Present podcast. His most recent book is Coming Out Republican: A History of the Gay Right (University of Chicago Press, 2024).
Texas Senator John Cornyn greets fellow Republican Brooke Rollins at the hearing for her nomination for Secretary of Agriculture, January 23, 2025. Cornyn has since been dumped by the GOP, and Rollins has championed pesticides that the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement seeks to ban. Photo credit: Tom Witham, USDA/Wikimedia Commons.
News focus:
Earlier this summer Elaine Kamarck and E.J. Dionne noted that the GOP was splintering over Trump’s agenda, with non-MAGA Republicans sitting out the midterms. With a little more than 6 weeks before Election Day, independents, regular Republicans and MAGA influencers are abandoning the Party of Trump.
Energizing MAGA turnout appears to be Donald Trump’s midterm strategy. However, vulnerable candidates continue to distance themselves. This week, Florida Republican Representative Byron Donalds, in a tight race against Democrat (and former Republican!) David Jolly, reduced and obscured references to the President on his campaign website.
Earlier this month, former George W. Bush political advisor Karl Rove criticized Trump’s strategy of making the midterms about him; now, in a surprise move (given his history) Rove has denounced racism in the Republican Party, announcing he will vote against Bo French, a GOP candidate for Texas railroad commissioner and legendary bigot.
Outgoing Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) raises money for GOP Senate candidates—but not Trump-endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, beat him in the primary. Cornyn says it is because Paxton is lazy and a poor fundraiser. A Cornyn event this week, which looked like an alumni reunion for the George W. Bush White House and includes the former president, will also exclude Republicans Mike Collins (Georgia) and Michael Whately (North Carolina.)
In June, mega-MAGA Tucker Carlson expressed regret about supporting Donald Trump. He left the Republican Party, stating that Trump put Israeli interests over American ones. Carlson has also defended Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic candidate opposing former Representative Mike Rogers in Michigan, and criticized Rogers as “a toady to Israel and an enemy of civil liberties.”
More recently, two members of Utah’s all-Republican delegation spoke out against Trump’s media ban; so has Representative Mike Simpson (R, ID-02).
Influencers Candace Owens, Joe Rogan, and Alex Jones have all broken with Trump over Iran as well. Influencer Milo Yiannopoulos, deported to Great Britain at the end of August, says he is “ashamed” to have supported Trump.Megyn Kelly has called the war and the Trump family’s profits while in the White House, “grifty.” The increasingly factional quality of the MAGA coalition also seems linked to plummeting influencer numbers.
Last week, Steve Bannon and Bernie Sanders shared a stage at the Pro-Human Assembly in Washington, D.C. Both criticized the Trump administration’s unwillingness to regulate AI. Earlier in the summer, Bannon also gave a lengthy interview to Politico in which he depicted the GOP as out of touch, without ideas, and vulnerable to a populist -infused Democrat party.
MAHA influencer Kelly Ryerson, a.k.a. “The Glyphosate Girl” called the Trump administration siding with Bayer in Johnson v. Monsanto, “devastating.” Ryerson and her allies also oppose Trump’s nomination of Heidi Overton as commissioner of the FDA: she supports glyphosate and food additive deregulation. Last week, the Agriculture Committee voted to send a farm bill to the full Senate that cuts funds for pesticide-free farming, delays pesticide review, and kills a provision proposed by Democrats permitting Americans harmed by pesticides to sue.
Support for Republicans has gone very soft among Latino voters, with 78% saying they would prefer Democratic control of Congress. Representative María Salazar (R, FL-27), in a hot race with former TV news anchor Elliott Rodriguez, has pushed back publicly on the administration’s immigration policies, and as a result, is being battered online by the MAGA faithful.
What we want to go viral:
Once you finish listening to our show, Neil wants you to head on over to Drafting the Past, an online magazine of history books and ideas. Begun as an independent podcast by Princeton’s Kate Carpenter in 2022, award-winning historian Megan Kate Nelson joined up a year ago to create a terrific new website.
Claire wants you to read Micki McElya’s Liberation Summer: The Moment That Changed the Women’s Movement and the Future of American Politics (Avid Reader Press/Simon & Schuster, 2026), about the many revolutions that intersected at the September 7, 1968 No More Miss America demo on the Atlantic City Boardwalk.
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