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John Zogby: already the White House going in full DEFCON mode, that's why I suggest that this could be if not a lethal blow, a devastating blow to the Trump presidency
Jeremy Zogby: It is kryptonite and it could very well take the president down, but I think that not only could it take the president down, I think it could shake the whole confidence, remaining confidence in our political system.
John Zogby: It's Friday and it's another edition of Real Polling and Real Time with Zogby. And here we are. There's Jeremy. How you doing?
Jeremy Zogby: Hey, I am doing all right. How about you?
John Zogby: I'm good. And I'm John. And, I'll kick it off and, I do a weekly report card for the Washington Examiner and, I, have to grade the [00:01:00] president every week, and, this week I'm going to give him an F even though, he, he did get his, budget, he got it through Congress, slimmest of majorities.
But, I've been saying right along that I believe that Jeffrey Epstein is the kryptonite. To this president. It's the one thing that can derail the Trump presidency. And it was a matter of time before some documents were released, revealing, email exchanges, between Jeffrey Epstein and others, including one cryptically that he wrote to himself.
I don't think we see. The hardest of hard evidence yet just suggestive evidence about how much Donald Trump was involved with Jeffrey Epstein, how much Donald [00:02:00] Trump was involved with Virginia Joffrey, how much Donald Trump was involved. period. But what we do see is that there was involvement that it was contrary to the public.
utterances of the President. We do see, interestingly, already the White House going in full DEFCON mode, to protect and defend the President of the United States. And we do know that this time there's more documentation. There's the Attorney General's, Study that had been done, that wasn't released.
We do know that there are democratic names, plenty of them allegedly, on the Attorney General's desk and in, in these documents. But I'm gonna suggest to you that from what I've seen over the years, [00:03:00] that number one, these are being released and there is not a diversion. That's gonna block, big news on this, that whenever there's big news on Jeffrey Epstein, the president's numbers go down, he's at an average of 42% approval.
But there are two polls in the, thirties that are out. We're gonna have to see ours and we're gonna have to see, the polls of, of other organizations. But as average. Is down considerably from where it had been. It's in the low forties. And I think, what we're going to see is that with each release, it looks like, some of his MAGA support is being chipped away.
Now you had the very bizarre instance of, the, woman in, in New Mexico who [00:04:00] was elected, to a Democratic seat 50 52 days ago, just being sworn in now because it was widely understood that once she was sworn in, she was going to be the 218th signator. To the, permission to release the Epstein documents, which she did.
But prior to that, the president called, actually to the situation room. Lauren Bober. Who has been a MAGA supporter, but she does not support the president on Epstein. And she was one of the co cos signatories of release. She was called to the situation room with the Attorney General Deputy Attorney General and the FBI director and told.
To change her vote and God knows what she was promised or what [00:05:00] she was threatened. I, don't know. That's speculation. What I do know is that she refused to do that and the vote went through. You're seeing a chipping away of MAGA support. I thought you were always going to see some of that and even more of it as things go on.
And that's why I suggest that this could be the Not, if not a lethal blow, a devastating blow to the Trump presidency because there's at a time when like Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton was soaring. After his second term victory, and then all of the Monica Lewinsky stuff came out. But the president was presiding over peace and prosperity.
He had charisma a popularity. Most Americans did not want to make any changes. They treated impeachment as, It's sacrosanct. and so his numbers [00:06:00] actually stayed steady in Trump's case with his numbers going down with some of his base leaving and. Quite possibly more leaving. is this the time where there could be close to a knockout blow?
I'm gonna suggest to stay tuned for those who thought including the president himself, that he was a hundred percent invulnerable. I'm not so sure. I'm not so sure. I know you have some thoughts.
Jeremy Zogby: Yeah, nobody's invulnerable, especially in this environment. before I get to the Epstein stuff, I, agree with you that, We're gonna wait for our numbers.
John Zogby: Yes.
Jeremy Zogby: my sense that they would be lower than last month. I, don't really see how there's, any bump. If there is a bump. I [00:07:00] suppose it's because of the, shutdown deal being made. But, that was long and painful for a lot of people. we're talking millions of Amer Americans. the, 42 million Americans on Snap benefits who were. waiting on a knife's edge for, when is their account going to, when, is the money going to drop?
That's 42 million Americans. the fact that we Ted that catastrophe, I was, worried, about, if this had continued longer, the risk for social unrest would only increase, but okay, that's out of the way now, but you still have the cost of living issue. And that played out big time in New Jersey, and it played out in Virginia as well because it's not just the 42 million Americans on SNAP benefits, it's also the millions of Americans who work for [00:08:00] federal government, and not just the federal government, but the contractors and that you can. can comfortably say millions of Americans. And so that played out in Virginia. but it's not only that. Now there's all this talk about Venezuela. did that come from? we were accustomed over the summer to being very nervous about Ukraine. Spiraling outta control. A war. A, growing war. expanding beyond a proxy war. Uh, of course Israel and Iran and make no mistake, are still looming threats for the geopolitical order, which would impact the United States, which is already on the edge, financially. But now you throw into the mix of Venezuela and, a poll came out today from Reuters Ipsos [00:09:00] that only 29%. Of Americans support what is going on. And look, even though you can say these are drug cartels and these are violent criminals. the fact of the matter, the question said, do they support the killing of these type of individuals in bypassing, the judicial process? And not surprisingly. Only 29% supported. Now, the bulk of that support clearly came from Republicans, but when you look at Democrats and independent voters, they can't get on board with that because they know that if that becomes normalized, there's a greater potential for that trend to come home. And nobody wants to see that. the entire bypassing of a judicial process, even if we're talking about the most vile criminals in the world. And I'm gonna tie this all into how this goes in, into the midterms, but I'm gonna, I'm gonna put that on hold for a second [00:10:00] and now address the Epstein story, I first became aware of in 2015. And it, it just keeps reemerging. it comes and it goes, it's like a, it's like a franchise horror film. just keeps churning out. I'm gonna look at the broader and bigger picture here. I agree with you. It is kryptonite and it could very well take the president down, but I think that not only could it take the president down, I think it take, could take the, it could shake the whole confidence, remaining confidence in our political system.
Because my question is, and I don't know the answer to this, but. If we have some serious revelations that are tantamount to a smoking gun, and you've already alluded to, the vast array of individuals who are [00:11:00] implicated in this awful story. does the, are, is any release of files confined to one political party? fallout right by nature. Just, because of how many individuals are on that list. I, think you see what I'm getting at. we're talking about if it's proven that Donald Trump had some serious involvement, then we're gonna learn about a lot of other people. And what that would do to the remaining confidence in our political system, I, think is just unbelievable. so the last thing.
John Zogby: Can I interject here? Yeah, because Yeah, that's true. there allegedly are some very big names, big name Democrats, and Democrat, democratic donors and supporters
Jeremy Zogby: too
John Zogby: and what
Jeremy Zogby: and [00:12:00] beyond
John Zogby: and beyond politics. Sure. the point is there's only one president and, the president, said he wasn't on the ballot in New Jersey and Virginia.
Oh. He was on the ballot. In June, New Jersey and Virginia, this was a drumming that he took in both states. These ended up not being close at all, and his approval rating in those two states was dismal. And so in this instance, the president is the lightning rod here, and it appears that, look, we're dealing with a bunch of rogues.
if Jeffrey Epstein is a character witness, come on. But apparently he has firsthand knowledge of Donald Trump, and that is because he has spent a lot of time with Donald Trump. And do we want a president of the United States [00:13:00] who has spent a lot of time with Jeffrey Epstein, but he's the president.
He's the chief law enforcer, and it will not reflect well on him and it, will damage the Republican party. my hunch is you're gonna start to see a slow chipping away of Republicans and then maybe a mass movement because he'll be deadly. come the, 26 elections, I'm sorry, go ahead.
Jeremy Zogby: we're in a hundred percent agreement on that, that I made that very clear. There's, no debating that th this isn't, this isn't a counter attack. This is a discussion. and what I'm saying is if you find the smoking gun, that discovery process is not going to be just confined to him.
I'm only making the observation that if we find out the, [00:14:00] if we discover the smoking gun. it will have the potential to rattle the faith in our, system because it, will automatically implicate a lot of under other, individuals. So why does all this, matter other than for obvious reasons, but we're trying to look forward to the midterms I'll keep this very simple. say ba based on my reading of the data and the unfolding of events. I can't use the term it's competitive because competition implies that, the two parties competing against each other are making ground and, are doing very well. Now, on the surface you could say, look at New Jersey and look at Virginia and look at New York City.
But you and I know. That was a natural backlash against the President's [00:15:00] performance in the first year, which is very typical, right? That was the same thing that happened, following the first 100 days of Biden. Remember, Virginia swung back Maga from and but, what, I want to say is that. not so much that the Democrats, in my view, have their mojo back because the reality is, they face a split within their party this growing trend of urban socialists, right? We saw the victory in New York City. We just saw the victory of a mayor in Seattle. That's gonna grow. But I don't know that Democrats, immediately, ready to resolve their division. Just as it's the same case that we're seeing in the Republican party. There's a growing rift in the party. So this is really interesting. This is an interesting dynamic that both political parties are going into the midterms with some [00:16:00] serious, divisions within their parties.
John Zogby: total agreement. I'm just gonna end my comments by just wondering out loud on another front. This big, beautiful bill, has been passed, and so now what we hear is that furloughed workers are coming back. bonus checks for those, especially in transportation. As I understand it, TSA agents, flight, controllers, are getting a $10,000 bonus on top of their back pay and, and their current checks.
And so where does that money come from? Wasn't all of this part of the Republican agenda to reduce the, [00:17:00] deficit. And if you're talking about reducing the deficit and shutting down the government for 42 days to save money on the backs of federal employees and Medicaid recipients and SNAP recipients, and then a lot of this money is going to be repet.
where is the savings? And that is a real hole I think, in the Republican argument. Now, I'm a Democrat. I'm not promoting a democratic agenda 'cause I frankly don't know what the hell the democratic agenda really is except to not be Republican at this point. But I am suggesting that it's not a very good thing to be a Republican these days.
they took a drumming. on November 4th, not only Trump, they did too. Those that, yeah, this is, where I'm at.
Jeremy Zogby: Yeah. And [00:18:00] I think when you cut through it all, I think. We're largely in agreement, on, the performance of both I think we're just using slightly different language. I think the big picture we're, in agreement.
John Zogby: But I'll end by quoting the superhero of all time. Superman. I am getting weak now.
I'm getting weaker. I can barely breathe. That's Superman on Kryptonite.
Jeremy Zogby: I, can't really say much. That's a great way to end it.
John Zogby: All right. Have a good week.
Jeremy Zogby: You too. Have a good weekend.
John Zogby: Yeah, thanks.
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