{"id":15547,"date":"2025-10-30T18:54:43","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T01:54:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15547"},"modified":"2025-10-30T19:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T02:27:08","slug":"a-pretty-weak-strongman-bradcast-10302025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15547","title":{"rendered":"A Pretty Weak &#8216;Strongman&#8217;: &#8216;BradCast&#8217; 10\/30\/2025"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/Images\/BradCast_TrumpAF1Stairs_103025.jpg\" hspace=\"6\" vspace=\"3\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\">On today&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><i>BradCast<\/i><\/a>: For a guy who believes he&#8217;s a strongman, or <i>wants<\/i> to be one &#8212; in a nation where too many have fallen for that idea as well &#8212; the President, with each passing day, is revealing himself to be incredibly weak. Even his own supporters have noticed, and are finally beginning to turn away from him in <i>all<\/i> of the swing states and even in some of the so-called &#8220;reddest&#8221; states! [<i>Audio link to full show follows this summary.<\/i>]\n<p>Yes, he&#8217;s still causing a lot of pain for a lot of people. He&#8217;ll continue to cruelly do so as long as he can. But don&#8217;t fall for his tough guy act. He continues to be a <i>wannabe<\/i> strongman, even while he&#8217;s failing on virtually every front. We make the case on today&#8217;s program, along with the latest news and coverage of several under-the-radar issues and contests on next Tuesday&#8217;s off-year election ballot.<\/p>\n<p>Among the evidence from which we draw today&#8230;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tough guy <b>Donald Trump<\/b> <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/115460423936412555\">calls for<\/a> the U.S. &#8220;Department of War&#8221; to resume testing nuclear weapons just minutes before meeting with China&#8217;s <i>actual<\/i> strongman President <b>Xi Jinping<\/b> last night. Just about every point Trump made in his social media announcement on nuclear weapons <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/ideas\/archive\/2025\/10\/trump-nuclear\/684758\/\">was false<\/a>, leaving actual expert in this field completely <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/7329958\/trumps-nuclear-weapons-testing-what-to-know\/\">confused<\/a>. (And then Xi, like so many other world leaders who have figured out how easy it is to play Trump, went on to <a href=\"https:\/\/wapo.st\/4hEoJGL\">eat his lunch<\/a>. Trump  <a href=\"https:\/\/truthsocial.com\/@realDonaldTrump\/posts\/115462098072054944\">didn&#8217;t even notice<\/a>.)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;What If Trump Is Weaker Than We Think&#8221;\u201dand America&#8217;s Finally Figuring It Out?&#8221;, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/stories\/2025\/10\/29\/2351028\/-What-If-Trump-Is-Weaker-Than-We-Think-and-America-s-Finally-Figuring-It-Out?pm_campaign=trending&#038;pm_source=sidebar&#038;pm_medium=web\">muses our friend<\/a> <b>Thom Hartmann<\/b>, as Trump&#8217;s previously ironclad grip on Republicans in Congress begins to reveal numerous cracks in both chambers. &#8220;It&#8217;s just a matter of time,&#8221; Thom correctly concludes.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><b>Michigan<\/b>&#8216;s Democratic state Senate Majority Whip and 2026 U.S. Senate Candidate, <b>Mallory McMorrow<\/b>, <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/MalloryMcMorrow\/status\/1983623780036649059\">calls out<\/a> the Administration for choosing to violate the law by &#8220;using food as a political weapon&#8221; in cutting off money allocated by Congress to fund payments to some 42 million Americans on <b>SNAP<\/b>. The threat to starve Americans, beginning on November 1, is supposedly due to the federal government shutdown that our very weak President appears both uninterested and unable to do anything about. Late today, a federal judge <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/10\/30\/politics\/boston-judge-intervene-snap-payments\">suggested<\/a> she was likely to <i>order<\/i> the Administration to follow the law by using emergency contingency funds to keep SNAP going as November begins.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Trump&#8217;s national <b>approval numbers<\/b> are beginning to fall again, to all time lows, following a brief and tiny uptick on the heels of the faltering Israel\/Hamas agreement. He continues to have the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/saradorn\/2025\/10\/29\/trump-approval-rating-hits-second-term-low-in-latest-poll-despite-his-claims-of-highest-numbers-ever\/\">lowest approval numbers<\/a> for any President in modern history at this point in his term. So, naturally, he is lying about that to media in hopes they will dutifully report his fake news. For example, on Air Force One this week, he lied to the press gaggle: &#8220;I have the best numbers for any President in many years, any President!&#8221; Nice try, weakman.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>But where his plunging approval ratings are <i>really<\/i> beginning to leave a mark are in 12 states that voted in his favor last year, where new polling now shows him <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/donald-trumps-approval-rating-underwater-in-12-states-he-won-10951317\">underwater in <i>all<\/i> of them<\/a>! The states where he enjoys negative ratings after winning them last year include every single battleground state (<b>Arizona<\/b>, <b>Georgia<\/b>, <b>Michigan<\/b>, <b>North Carolina<\/b>, <b>Nevada<\/b>, <b>Pennsylvania<\/b> and <b>Wisconsin<\/b>) as well as five states where he easily won less than one year ago. His approval ratings are now underwater in <b>Alaska<\/b>, <b>Florida<\/b>, <b>Iowa<\/b>, <b>Ohio<\/b> and <b><i>Texas<\/i><\/b>! In all of those states he&#8217;s plunged in approval by an average of about 15 percentage points since last November. Does that sound like a strongman to you?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>We&#8217;ll see if voters agree with the argument in next week&#8217;s off-year elections, as important contests and ballot issues loom in <b>New York City<\/b>, <b>New Jersey<\/b>, <b>Virginia<\/b> and <b>California<\/b>. But there are also some under-the-radar races elsewhere, several of which we detail today in advance of Tuesday&#8217;s Election Day, including Republican <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/election-2025-voter-id-citizenship-maine-texas-54ee0c3ed248df9c4fbc3309698c863f\">efforts to make voting more difficult<\/a> (for certain people) in both <b>Texas<\/b> and <b>Maine<\/b>, and a Hail Mary effort by Republicans to try and <a href=\"https:\/\/boltsmag.org\/pennsylvania-supreme-court-elections-2025\/\">somehow win a majority<\/a> on the <b>Pennsylvania<\/b> Supreme Court in time for the 2028 Presidential election.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li>Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/?p=15546\">our latest <i>Green News Report<\/i><\/a>, as the deadly, record-breaking, climate change-fueled <b>Hurricane Melissa<\/b> continues to wreak havoc in the <b>Caribbean<\/b> as it begins to peter out in strength during its move into the colder North Atlantic. Oh, and bad news for <b>Iceland<\/b>, just to add a bite to the end of today&#8217;s program&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<blockquote><p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\".\/Images\/Speaker_Icon_24.png\" style=\"width: 24px; float: none; vertical-align: middle;\"><span style=\"font-size: 18px; line-height: 18px;\"> <b><i><a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/audio\/BradCast_BradFriedman-WeakStrongman-VoteRestrictionsTX-ME_103025.mp3\">CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!&#8230;<\/a><\/i><\/b><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><center><b>* * *<\/b><\/center><i>While we post <a href=\"https:\/\/BradBlog.com\/BradCast\"><\/i>The BradCast<i><\/a> here every day, and you can hear it across all of our great affiliate stations and websites, to automagically get new episodes as soon as they&#8217;re available sent right to your computer or personal device, subscribe for free at <a href=\"https:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/id803467610\">iTunes<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pandora.com\/podcast\/the-bradcast-w-brad-friedman\/PC:1000025838\">Pandora<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/tunein.com\/radio\/The-BradCast-with-Brad-Friedman-p477565\/\">TuneIn<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iheart.com\/podcast\/256-the-bradcast-w-brad-friedm-30973643\/\">iHeart<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/The-BradCast-w-Brad-Friedman\/dp\/B08JJRN86R\/ref=sr_1_1\">Amazon<\/a> or <a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/podcastgen\/bradcast\/feed.xml\">our native RSS feed<\/a>!<\/i><\/p>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-START--><\/p>\n<div style=\"background:#f5f0e0; border:2px solid #6b5a2e; border-radius:6px; padding:10px 14px; text-align:center; font-family:Georgia,serif;\"><span style=\"display:block; margin:0 0 8px 0; color:#3a2e0e; font-size:0.95em; line-height:1.5;\"><strong>The BRAD BLOG<\/strong>, <em>The BradCast<\/em> and <em>Green News Report<\/em> are all 100% independent and 100% listener and reader supported!<\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/Donate\" style=\"display:inline-block; background:#6b5a2e; color:#ffffff; padding:6px 18px; border-radius:4px; font-weight:bold; text-decoration:none; font-family:Georgia,serif; font-size:0.9em;\">Please CLICK HERE to help support our work today!<\/a><\/div>\n<p><!--BB-DONATEPITCH-END--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On today&#8217;s BradCast: For a guy who believes he&#8217;s a strongman, or wants to be one &#8212; in a nation where too many have fallen for that idea as well &#8212; the President, with each passing day, is revealing himself to be incredibly weak. Even his own supporters have noticed, and are finally beginning to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,675,598,543,479,1964,883,16,669,2073,477,350,2074,501,48,172,300,47,198,233,280],"tags":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-15547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media-appearance","category-bradcast","category-china","category-climate-change","category-donald-trump","category-election-2025","category-fascism","category-florida","category-food-safety","category-hurricane-melissa","category-kpfk","category-maine","category-mallory-mcmorrow","category-nuclear-power","category-pennsylvania","category-photo-id-laws","category-republicans","category-texas","category-us-house","category-us-senate","category-vote-caging"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15547"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bradblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=15547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}