The DSR Network

Donald Trump has been raging at Pope Leo’s criticism of the Iran war for weeks, and he just unleashed his most vile attack yet. Trump accused the Pope of “endangering a lot of Catholics” by advocating for peace. Yet a new Washington Post poll finds that Trump is losing this battle very badly. Large majorities react negatively to Trump’s claims about the Pope, and even more strikingly, big majorities approve of the Pope’s message of peace, even though Trump is bombarding America with relentless lies and propaganda about both the Pope and the war. We talked to scholar-of-religion Sarah Posner, who writes for Talking Points Memo and hosts the Reign of Error podcast. We discuss why this polling is encouraging in non-obvious ways, why there’s a schism between white Evangelicals and Catholics over Trump, how MAGA encourages Trump to imagine himself fighting a spiritual war against the Pope, and why that’s a political disaster for him.

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Trump may not be making America great again, but his is making Iran strong again. This fiasco of a war has revealed major American diplomatic and military weaknesses while Iran has flexed its control over the Strait of Hormuz. A major global realignment is coming. Steve Cook, Rosa Brooks, and Ed Luce join David Rothkopf to break down why we might be witnessing the beginning of a post-American global order. 
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On the DSR Daily for Wednesday, we cover reports that Iran and the US may be close to a memo to end the war, the key takeaways of yesterdays primaries, Howard Lutnick’s upcoming congressional testimony, and more. 
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Donald Trump hasn’t thought this one through. Politico reports that Republicans are grappling with rising “anxiety” about the midterms. A key reason: Trump’s obsession with his ballroom and other pet projects is muddying the GOP economic message. That’s bad enough. Worse, Republicans just agreed to seek $1 billion in taxpayer money for the ballroom. Though this is allegedly for security, vulnerable Republicans will hate having to defend this. It’s not just that they themselves are lamenting that the project is distracting from their message. It’s also that the ballroom is already deeply unpopular and they’re now tied more tightly to it. We talked to political scientist Tom Schaller, author of a good piece on Trump’s “vanity presidency.” He explains why the ballroom is so deadly for the GOP, how Trump is creating a uniquely “personalist” form of presidential rule, and why Trump’s megalomania actually matters to the voters who will help decide midterms.

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The tech bros could be in for a rude awakening come November. We’ve seen the big names in AI increasingly cozy up with Republicans, but they may have forgotten that there is another party is poised to get back into power. How is Silicon Valley going to respond to a future Democratic administration? Are tech bros hoping to tip the scales to the point where it doesn’t matter who wins? GWU Professor and Tech Policy Press contributor Dave Karpf joins David Rothkopf to consider all this and more. 

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