{"id":1055556,"date":"2025-08-08T10:18:59","date_gmt":"2025-08-08T14:18:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/?p=1055556"},"modified":"2025-08-08T10:18:59","modified_gmt":"2025-08-08T14:18:59","slug":"what-trump-is-reading-things-arent-going-donald-trumps-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/what-trump-is-reading-things-arent-going-donald-trumps-way\/","title":{"rendered":"WHAT TRUMP IS READING: \u201cThings Aren\u2019t Going Donald Trump\u2019s Way\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" height=\"449\" width=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png?w=1024\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1050776\" srcset=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png 1101w, https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png?resize=300,132 300w, https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png?resize=768,337 768w, https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png?resize=1024,449 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Key Point:<\/strong> \u201cThree central campaign promises\u2014that he would end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and boost the economy\u2014are in peril. And for the first time in his 200 days back in office, the White House has begun to worry about members of the president\u2019s own party defying him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2025\/08\/trump-ukraine-gaza-economy\/683786\/?gift=SCYx-5scVta3-cr_IlgTyejhk5-0Nem-M8GrXOmqoss\"><strong>The Atlantic<\/strong><\/a><strong>: Things Aren\u2019t Going Donald Trump\u2019s Way<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>By Jonathan Lemire<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Three central campaign promises\u2014that he would end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and boost the economy\u2014are in peril. And for the first time in his 200 days back in office, the White House has begun to worry about members of the president\u2019s own party defying him.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Tomorrow, the clock runs out on the two-week window that Trump gave Russia to reach a cease-fire with Ukraine. The president has been upset by his inability to end the war. \u2026 Trump likewise has grown exasperated with Israel\u2019s prosecution of the war in the Gaza Strip, a conflict that could soon escalate; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu said today that his military plans to fully occupy the famine-plagued Strip.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The other deadline is Trump\u2019s latest vow on tariffs, which go into effect today for 60 nations, with rates ranging from 10 to 41 percent.<\/strong> \u2026 [T]he economy has shown new signs of weakness, with stubbornly high prices potentially set to rise again because of the tariffs and, most potently, <strong>a recent jobs report poor enough that Trump lashed out against the bureaucrat who compiled it;<\/strong> last week, he fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, claiming, without evidence, that the jobs numbers were bogus. That unprecedented act of petulance risks undermining Wall Street\u2019s confidence in the economy and undercutting Trump\u2019s campaign pledge to give the United States another economic \u201cgolden age.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Those geopolitical and economic headwinds have been joined by forceful political ones. Since going out on August recess, <strong>Republican lawmakers have been heckled at town halls while trying to defend the president\u2019s signature legislative accomplishment, the One Big Beautiful Bill.<\/strong> <strong>And some of those same Republicans, in a rare act of rebellion, have questioned Trump\u2019s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein matter, a scandal that the president, try as he may, simply has been unable to shake.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>The mood in the White House has darkened in the past month, as the president\u2019s challenges have grown deeper. <\/strong>The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has become intensely frustrating for Trump, two White House officials and a close outside adviser told me. The president had truly believed that his relationship with Putin would bring about a quick end to the conflict. But instead, Putin has taken advantage of Trump\u2019s deference to him and has openly defied the president\u2014\u201cembarrassed him,\u201d one of the officials told me\u2014by ignoring his calls for a cease-fire and ratcheting up his strikes on Ukrainian cities.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Then there is Epstein.<\/strong> Trump has desperately wished the story away. He feels deeply betrayed by his MAGA supporters who believed him when he intimated during the campaign that something was nefarious about the government\u2019s handling of the case, and who now have a hard time believing him when he says their suspicions are actually bogus.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>When it comes to his own political standing, Trump is also trying to create his own reality, seeming to will away the challenges he faces. In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, he insisted that he has \u201cthe best poll numbers I\u2019ve ever had,\u201d claiming his approval was north of 70 percent. But that number represented his approval among Republicans, the interviewer told him. <strong>In fact, his overall approval rating is hovering at just about 40 percent. When corrected, all Trump could do was call the whole thing \u201cfake.\u201d<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Key Point: \u201cThree central campaign promises\u2014that he would end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and boost the economy\u2014are in peril. And for the first time in his 200 days back in office, the White House has begun to worry about members of the president\u2019s own party defying him.\u201d The Atlantic: Things Aren\u2019t Going Donald [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1055556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-press-release"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>WHAT TRUMP IS READING: \u201cThings Aren\u2019t Going Donald Trump\u2019s Way\u201d - Democrats<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/what-trump-is-reading-things-arent-going-donald-trumps-way\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Democrats\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-08-08T14:18:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/01\/Black-Logo-White-Fill-For-Email.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1101\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"483\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Adrianna Tomasello\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Adrianna Tomasello\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/what-trump-is-reading-things-arent-going-donald-trumps-way\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/democrats.org\/news\/what-trump-is-reading-things-arent-going-donald-trumps-way\/\",\"name\":\"WHAT TRUMP IS READING: \u201cThings Aren\u2019t Going Donald Trump\u2019s Way\u201d - 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