Transcription
There is exactly one politician in history who sued a newspaper for publishing a poll. There's only one politician in American history who is so constitutionally illiterate that he actually thinks you can sue a newspaper for commissioning and publishing a political poll. And now, he's threatening to do it again because the New York Times published a poll showing only 32 percent of Americans think they are better off with Donald Trump as president than they were with Joe Biden as president. 49% say they are worse off, and 19% say it's about the same.
The New York Times poll published today that has provoked Donald Trump's newest absurd and empty threat to sue over a poll shows that 56% disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling his job as president. The poll shows that Donald Trump has lost the voters that gave him the Electoral College, the swing voters who swung from Joe Biden in 2020 to Donald Trump in 2024 have swung back away from Donald Trump. Donald Trump has lost them on the most important issues in the poll.
And so you are not alone tonight in America, if you disapprove of the way Donald Trump is managing the federal government. You are part of the 56 percent majority who thinks that. You're not alone tonight if you disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling Venezuela. You are joined by 53 percent of the country. You are not alone tonight if you disapprove of the way Donald Donald Trump is handling the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, you are part of the 54% who feel that way. You're not alone tonight if you disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling immigration, and the economy, and relationships with other countries. A powerful 58% majority disapproves tonight of how Donald Trump is handling those three issues. Immigration, the economy, and relationships with other countries. That is the same amount of disapproval Donald Trump faces now in how he's handling the war between between Russia and Ukraine, 58 percent disapproval.
And on the final two numbers, on the final two issues, the numbers get much worse. On the the issue that was widely considered the most important issue in the last presidential campaign, Donald Trump now has a 64% disapproval rating because 64% disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling the cost of living. That's what the last campaign was supposed to be all about, the cost of living. And the swing voters reportedly swung to Donald Trump because of the cost of living. And now they all disapprove of what Donald Trump has done to them, what he has done to their cost of living.
And there's only one number in the poll, and there's only one number in the that is even worse for Donald Trump. It's the worst number in the poll. It's the kind of sky-high number that is seldom seen in issue polls like this. And it is the reason this program has focused so much attention on this issue over the course of the last year. It is the issue that has separated more voters from Donald Trump than any other issue. You are not alone tonight in America if you disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling the Epstein files. 66% disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling the Epstein files. 74% of independents disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling the Epstein files. And a full 25% of Republicans now disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling the Epstein files. And that is as high a disapproval among Republicans as it gets for Donald Trump.
There are Trump voters who support Donald Trump on every issue no matter what. A 77-year-old man in Dedham, Massachusetts told the New York Times in his response to the polling questions, quote, I mean Donald Trump could look at me in the face and tell me to go screw myself and I'd say thank you. Separating Trump voters from Donald Trump is the most difficult political exercise anyone has ever tried to do. But a dead man is doing it. From the grave, Donald Trump's old friend Jeffrey Epstein is separating more voters from Donald Trump than any issue ever has. Donald Trump's relentless campaign to keep the Epstein files hidden has ended up revealing the real Donald Trump in a way that his voters can now easily understand.
Tonight, Donald Trump is in his 33rd day of violating the law that requires the release of the Epstein files, full release all the files. It is part of the long list that proves Donald Trump's sheer hatred of the rule of law. It's not that Donald Trump doesn't respect the rule of law. It's not that Donald Trump doesn't understand the rule of law. It's that he hates the rule of law. The law must never apply to him. Donald Trump has abused every concept of the rule of law that has been observed by all other politicians throughout our history. He has done it on the civil side of our law and on the criminal side of our law. Suing the Des Moines Register for issuing a poll in the last presidential election? That's Donald Trump's hatred of the civil rule of law that says you can't do that. There's a First Amendment. You can't do that. Donald Trump wants to closed down television networks, if anyone on the network says anything negative about Donald Trump because he hates the rule of law that prevents that from happening.
Today the man who tried to force Donald Trump to submit to the criminal rule of law by indicting him for a conspiracy against the United States in trying to overturn the presidential election and for violations of the Espionage Act in his illegal possession of classified documents explained the aspects of his investigation of Donald Trump that he is allowed to discuss publicly at the House Judiciary Committee. And while former Special Prosecutor Jack Smith was testifying, Donald Trump from Air Force One issued a social media post saying, quote, Jack Smith is a deranged animal. Republicans on the committee who defend language like that all the time, only when it comes from Donald Trump and whose relationship to the truth is identical to Donald Trump's kept insisting that Jack Smith was an unfair prosecutor who took orders directly from Joe Biden, even though Jack Smith has never spoken to Joe Biden. And all of the pathetically lying Republicans on the committee support Donald Trump's public instruction to his owned and operated federal prosecutors, now at the Trump Justice Department, to prosecute people in that same post. Donald Trump, of all people, called Jack Smith a deranged animal. He said, quote, hopefully the attorney general is looking at what he's done. Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and every president you can name between Richard Nixon and Donald Trump never did that. Never thought about doing that. They never told the attorney general who they should be investigating and prosecuting. Donald Trump violates that principle all the time, and he does it publicly. Three hours later, Donald Trump said, quote, there is no question that deranged Jack Smith should be prosecuted for his actions. You could not ask for a more flagrant, screamingly obvious proof of a president personally ordering prosecutions than what Donald Trump put in writing today while lying Republicans on that committee were trying to pretend that Joe Biden or any other president would ever do anything like that.
The Republican questions at the committee today ranged from the ignorant. To the idiotic. Let's start by saying that I started out, I was not real familiar with this issue. In fact, when chairman of the committee told me we had Jack coming in. My first response privately was, who's Jack Smith? And so my one question for you, Jack Smith, is, are you familiar with the Vietnamese city of Ben Trey. Other Republicans asked repeated pointless questions about how Jack Smith was appointed special prosecutor, but not one of them discussed the actual evidence that Jack Smith called proof beyond a reasonable doubt, that Donald Trump committed the crimes of conspiracy against the United States and violations of the Espionage Act.
The first sentence Jack Smith spoke to the committee today in his opening remarks was, quote, I love my country. He has said-he said in his testimony that he has no party loyalties. And then Jack Smith said this. President Trump was charged because the evidence established that he willfully broke the law, the very laws he took an oath to uphold. Grand juries in two separate districts reached this conclusion based on his actions, as alleged in the indictments they returned. Rather than accept his defeat in the 2020 2020 election, President Trump engaged in a criminal scheme to overturn the results and prevent the lawful transfer of power. After leaving office in January of of 21, President Trump illegally kept classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago Social Club and repeatedly tried to obstruct justice to conceal his continued retention of those documents. Highly sensitive national security information was held in a ballroom and a bathroom. Our investigation developed proof beyond a reasonable doubt that President Trump engaged in criminal activity.
This is what Jack Smith said about the principle he has dedicated his life to, the rule of law. After nearly 30 years of public service, including in international settings, I have seen how the rule of law can erode. My fear is that we have seen the rule of law function in our country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted. The rule of law is not self-executing. It depends on our collective commitment to apply it. The collective commitment to apply the rule of law was not present in the House Judiciary Committee hearing room today. The Republican side of that committee, along with almost all of the Republican House of Representatives and almost all of the Republican Senate have abandoned the rule of law to embrace the rule of Donald Trump. And for that, history will reward them with nothing but disgrace.