Wednesday saw President Donald Trump begin his day by heading to the Supreme Court to hear arguments on his administration’s case to end birthright citizenship, a right that has been enshrined in the U.S. Constitution for more than a century and going back to after the Civil War.
But if Trump thought that the fact that he nominated three justices would seal the deal for him, he was mistaken. All three — Justices Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett and Neil Gorsuch —seemed to utterly dismiss and scoff at Solicitor General John Sauer’s responses to their questions.
Prior to Trump’s little trek, he engaged with his normal behavior of attempting to jawbone the stock market by teasing that Iran’s president had asked for a ceasefire while also bragging that he might blast “Iran into oblivion or, as they say, back to the Stone Ages.”
This comes as the president will deliver an address to the nation about Iran this evening.
Welcome to the Trump reset. Or, at least, Trump’s attempt to regain control of the narrative. Presidents, particularly in their sixth year in office, suffer from voters who have grown tired of them or don’t believe the president has followed up on his promises.
Trump is not one to back down, so instead, he’s trying to do what he always does: reassert dominance in the face of all facts and data. Except in Trump’s case, few Americans believe he’s in the right.
Take the birthright citizenship case. Trump visiting the court is not just a breach of norms regarding the separation of powers–though it is–and not just about about that individual case: It’s about the Trump administration having the authority to deport even more people.
Trump partially won in 2024 thanks to chaos at the border during Joe Biden’s presidency. Despite his exhortations for mass deportations, he actually won majority-Hispanic counties along the U.S.-Mexico border.
But since Trump came into office, his mass deportation regime is now more associated with detaining five-year-olds, sending gay hairdressers to El Salvador and Immigration and Customs Enforcement shooting American citizens in the face. Democrats believed the outrage around ICE was enough to oppose spending for the whole Department of Homeland Security over it.
Polling bears this out. A CNN poll released on Wednesday showed that only 41 percent of Americans approve of how Trump has handled immigration. An Economist/YouGov poll showed that 46 percent of Americans say that the United States should decrease the amount of money it spends on ICE. Trump trying to brute force the high court to give him more authority to deport more people will probably not go over well with the voting public.
And Trump’s not too much better when it comes to Iran. When Trump ran for president, he tried to set a contrast between himself and Kamala Harris, slamming her for campaigning with uber-hawk Liz Cheney and saying he would be a “Pro-Peace” candidate. He picked non-interventionist Republican JD Vance to be his running mate.
But consistently, Americans are not sold on Trump’s Iran policy. The same Economist/YouGov poll showed only 28 percent of Americans support the Iran War and 59 percent oppose it. Morever, 26 percent of Americans who voted for Trump in 2024 do not approve of the Iran war.
Support for a potential ground invasion is even lower, as only 14 percent of Americans support such a measure. To be sure, Americans still have fatigue from two prolonged military adventures in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it stands to reason that they would not be eager for a ground invasion of Iran. But as that remains an option, potentially on Kharg Island, Americans are likely not going to change their minds about the war.
There’s also the fact that Americans just don’t trust the administration to tell the truth. The survey showed 55 percent of Americans say they think the White House is giving accurate information about Iran.
It’s not hard to see why they do not trust Trump. Since the war began, he typically spends his weekends saber rattling, causing the price of oil to spike and stocks to nosedive. Then, right before opening bell on Wall Street, he announces some new diplomatic breathrough.
That is likely to render Trump’s address moot; if Americans already do not believe the president will tell them the full truth, why would a primetime address fix any of these problems?
Trump’s political skill has always his been his ability to capture people’s attention. It’s why CNN famously would show an empty podium ahead of his rallies in 2016.
But now, Americans are tired of the spectacle when they no longer see it as keeping them safe and now see Trump’s shambolic foreign policy making their lives more expensive. Trump is broadcasting himself 24/7; but Americans are desperate to change the channel.
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