Latest / The Kinzinger Report / Nobody's Buying It | Trump's Numbers Collapse and the GOP Blames Biden Again — September 2, 2026

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Nobody's Buying It | Trump's Numbers Collapse and the GOP Blames Biden Again — September 2, 2026 · The Kinzinger Report

• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm Adam Kinzinger, and you're listening to the Kinzinger Report, where I bring you top stories and analysis on current events and the growing threats to our democracy.
• 0:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: After serving over a decade in Congress, I hope you know what's true and what really matters so that we can all work to save this country that we love so much.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, everybody, welcome to today's Kinsinger Report.
• 0:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: I'm Kinsinger, and this is my report.
• 0:34
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's gonna have you with us here.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: So our top story today.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: Three separate polls out this week, put Trump's approval at just 33% a record low.
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: for his second term matched only by the numbers right after January 6.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_03]: Even his own base is peeling off with a Republican approval down 14 points since last April.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: The man who calls himself the greatest president in history is, in reality, struggling to stay popular with the people who voted for him twice, maybe three times.
• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: in our allies walked away from the family photo.
• 1:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: The Texans who packed a commissioner meeting
• 1:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: to fight the closure of nearly a third of their country's polling places, the USS Abraham Lincoln finally docking after 286 days at sea.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: And the growing pile of evidence at PXF is fighting his culture war while losing the actual military.
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: So do me a favor like this video, share it with someone who needs to see it, subscribe, you never want to miss an episode.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: So we're going to get right to it.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: And of course, as you remember, it'll be even making the most informed person that you
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_03]: We'll start with an obsession that Trump can't shake, how history will rank him.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: This week, we got an early answer, so recently, Trump published a post ranking every American president with himself in the greatest tier ahead of Lincoln.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: I had of Washington and I had of both FDR and Teddy.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_03]: This week, the American people turned in their own assessment and it does not match his.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: So the latest pull from,
• 2:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: Reuters, Epsos, Registers, Trump's approval at just 33% and we're not even halfway through a storm.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: His arch enemy, Joe Biden, who was a failure according to that tier list, never sank that low.
• 2:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: On the cost of living, the number one issue for voters is false 71% disapprove of Trump's performance, including four in 10 Republicans.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's a big deal.
• 2:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: even the basis crumbling, a UMass Amherst pull out this week found that Trump's approval among Republicans has dropped by more than a dozen points since April of last year.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: Among those who voted for him in 2024, he's down 10, and only a quarter of Americans think that he's handling the war with Iran well.
• 3:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's even more bad news for the GOP, 46% of Democrats say that they're very enthusiastic about voting in November for Republicans at 31%.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: Independence preferred Democrats in Congress by 14 points too.
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_03]: And for the first time in about a decade, voters say Democrats have better ideas on the economy.
• 3:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: Trump's response is to call these surveys demoralization operations.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: The GOP doesn't have a much better excuse.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: Here's the chair of the RNC asked about the numbers.
• 3:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do you convince people that you're the right choice to make things
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's why we're doing things like the midterm convention, because we got to get the truth out to the American people.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: The president's still dealing with the Biden issues that were left over under the disastrous four years that they ruled.
• 3:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Inflation was over 9% gas prices were higher than they are now, and we're in the middle of a conflict.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: By the way, I honestly don't even know who the chair of the RNCS is crazy.
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: Biden, again, though, we covered a similar deflection from DHS Secretary Maul in yesterday.
• 4:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: Clearly, the GOP is getting nostalgic for the days when complaining about the guy in office was all you had to do.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_03]: But in 2026, when you felt all three branches of government for almost two, four years, that strategy is pretty weak.
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: And this is where Trump's ego comes back to bite him.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: Trump loves to be the center of attention.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: He dominates the media and that's by design.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: But when that's the kind of president you are, it becomes harder to shift the blame.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: The American people know exactly who's in the driver's seat, because you said it was you over and over.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_03]: And that means they know exactly who's crashing the car.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's Trump.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: So back at the Pentagon, PXF's culture war is God in the military.
• 4:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: So yesterday we told you about Army Secretary Dan Driscoll who resigned after taking his concerns about HXF's straight to the president.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: Now the people who worked around him are explaining exactly what those concerns were.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: CNN talked to multiple sources inside the Army and the message was consistent.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_03]: HXF's
• 5:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: is ripping away the army's ability to innovate and modernize by firing the very leaders responsible for it.
• 5:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: That list now includes the army chief of staff, the general and charge of transforming the force, and the general leading the army's adoption of drone warfare.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: Our allies see what's happening.
• 5:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: One defense official in Europe told CNN that HXS memos about technology are a smoke screen.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_03]: What he actually recognizes is a security,
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_03]: with image and culture fights.
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_03]: And plenty of Americans see it too.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_03]: Listen to our former Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall, described the result.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_04]: Secretary Heggseth is attempting to impose a number of I'll call him culture war initiatives on the Pentagon to structure the leadership.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_04]: And it's created a climate of fear throughout the entire institution.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_04]: I've never seen anything quite like this.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: A climate of fear throughout the entire institution in wartime.
• 6:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: The Pentagon calls that reporting a total fabrication,
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: Republicans, my graduates, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee told reporters, quote, I'm tired of all the chant, the churn.
• 6:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: Ask whether there's a leadership vacuum at the Pentagon.
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: He offered a one-word answer.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yes.
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: And what will he do about it?
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: Nothing.
• 6:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: Hexeth promised to restore the warrior ethos instead he's fired the warriors and frightened the rest while the army leads us through a war without a leader at some point.
• 6:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: The culture war becomes an all-consuming distraction from the real one, where beyond that point.
• 6:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: We move on to Thailand, where the sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln just touched the land for the first time in 286 days.
• 6:55
  [SPEAKER_03]: The Lincoln pulled in to port this morning.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: It left San Diego last November for a routine deployment than the war started, and the Lincoln never came back home.
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_03]: By the time it docked today, it had set a modern record for consecutive days at sea in combat.
• 7:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: And when it finally returns to California later this year, it will have completed one
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_03]: You know the conditions on board.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: Shortage is a basic supplies, deteriorating health service, health among a crew of roughly 5,000 severe mental de-ress.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: CNN has reported serious morale problems in at least one possible suicide attempt.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: Senator Richard Blumenthal wrote to PXF last month demanding answers about living conditions on the ship and journalists at Stars and Stripes who reported on all of it got fired for their trip.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_03]: They're suing.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_03]: The Admiral commanding the strike group called the port call a well-deserved opportunity for our sailors and Marines to rest and recharge, well-deserved as an understatement.
• 7:57
  [SPEAKER_03]: As the crew lined up to disembark, a commanding officer came over the loudspeaker and told them, I'm excited, as excited as you are.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_03]: Now compare all of that to the man who sent them there.
• 8:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: Here's the president asked about the conditions on the Lincoln and whether this appointment has gone, this appointment has gone too long.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_06]: People on the Lincoln, they say it's beautifully maintained and beautifully taken care of.
• 8:20
  [SPEAKER_06]: Children's appointment got off the ground.
• 8:24
  [SPEAKER_06]: No, no, no, no.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_06]: Not dearly long enough.
• 8:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: Beautifully maintained.
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: Not nearly long enough.
• 8:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: Families of those sailors heard that, so did the sailors.
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: So the sailors were finally getting off the boat, joy the shore leave, you earned it, even if the people who sent you can't bring themselves to say so.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: Trump's not doing any better by the way on the world stage, where his G20 summit turned into a diplomatic pile-up.
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_03]: The US is hosting the G20 Finance Minister as this week in Asheville, North Carolina.
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_03]: It was supposed to be a moment of unity.
• 8:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: Instead, the story of the day was that the invites was sent to a very unwelcome guest, Russia's finance minister, who hadn't appeared in person at a G20 gathering since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_03]: According to the New York Times, the Trump administration invited him without notifying any the other participants.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_03]: Treasury Secretary Scott Basin gave him the one-on-one meeting.
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: Our European allies were furious.
• 9:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: Germany's finance minister called the invitation a trouble and signal and said, of Russia's war, one cannot simply return to normality.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_03]: When it came time for the traditional group photo, the Europeans made clear that what imposed with Putin's crony.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: The photo was taken without him, bestant posed with him separately.
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_03]: Here's Trump explaining the decision in the Oval Office.
• 9:47
  [SPEAKER_06]: Well, we're going to see what happens, but we like getting along with everybody.
• 9:54
  [SPEAKER_06]: one of the reasons that I'm so successful I get along with everybody.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_06]: Thank you Steve.
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_03]: We'd like getting along with everybody.
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_03]: So just two is everybody.
• 10:03
  [SPEAKER_03]: We don't seem to be getting along with the allies who spent that summit fighting American tariffs.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_03]: We're definitely not getting along with Canada or largest trading partners who are getting along with.
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: A war-mongering criminal that's still bombing Ukrainian civilians, the North Korean dictatorship.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: There's certainly not the friends that I want for America.
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's the same pattern, we punish our friends, we reward our adversaries.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_03]: American leadership suffers the free people of the world and especially the Ukrainian suffer.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_03]: And finally, back home in Texas, hundreds of people stood up for what this administration keeps trying to take the ability to vote.
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_03]: Terrac County in Fort Worth is the third largest county in Texas at home to more than two million people in its ground zero for a razor tight Senate raise between Jamestale Rico and Republican nominee Ken Paxton an election that is increasingly worried the GOP.
• 10:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: Yesterday, the county's Republican Commissioners voted three to two along party lines to cut 92 polling locations compared to the 2022 midterms.
• 11:06
  [SPEAKER_03]: It's nearly a third of them, and they're disproportionately impacting poor marginalized communities, of course.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_03]: The county claims it's about saving money in low turnout, the GOP's recent track record says otherwise.
• 11:20
  [SPEAKER_03]: This is an attempt to deter voter turnout in the midterms, which has the potential to deliver Tidal Rico a monumental victory.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_03]: The people of Tarant County didn't back down.
• 11:30
  [SPEAKER_03]: For more than three hours, hundreds stood outside the courthouse and packed the hearing room and they came to be heard.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_03]: Listen to this.
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_08]: Voting is a right not a privilege.
• 11:41
  [SPEAKER_08]: Making citizens jump through hoops to vote is the kind of cowardice engaged in by people who don't think they can earn our votes.
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_08]: We should be deeply troubled by any decision that makes voting harder, particularly when that burden falls disproportionately on communities of color.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: The founders of our country would be a poll at how you treat people here with this stain.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_02]: And with your attempts to make it more difficult to vote, shame on you if you do this today.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_07]: Before you vote, ask yourselves.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_07]: Does this plan make it easier?
• 12:13
  [SPEAKER_07]: Are harder for the people you represent to cast your ballot?
• 12:17
  [SPEAKER_07]: Thank you.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: One woman put it perfectly, making citizens jump through hoops to vote is a kind of cowardice engaged in by people who don't think they can earn our votes.
• 12:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's not just Terran County, that's the whole GOP mid-term playbook.
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_03]: The party is even trying to win on a message, behind Trump they don't have one.
• 12:37
  [SPEAKER_03]: They have failed to deliver on every promise to the American people, what's the alternative?
• 12:49
  [SPEAKER_03]: by threatening enforcement at polling sites, or by removing them entirely.
• 12:54
  [SPEAKER_03]: Texas voters have had enough.
• 12:56
  [SPEAKER_03]: Even through the terror county protesters, even though they lost the vote, they won the argument.
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_03]: And a county decided by inches, winning the argument is what turns people out in tough circumstances.
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_03]: That is what the defense of democracy looks like.
• 13:10
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's what gives me hope for the future of our freedom.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_03]: And it's something that's worth keeping in mind when we feel down and out.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: Well, that's it.
• 13:19
  [SPEAKER_03]: That's the show for the second of September.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_03]: If this was worth your time, it was.
• 13:24
  [SPEAKER_03]: It was.
• 13:25
  [SPEAKER_03]: Then like it.
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_03]: Share it with someone who needs to see it and subscribe because you never want to miss an episode.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_03]: We'll see you back here tomorrow.