Agent who inspired HBO's 'Entourage' is behind Trump's tough-guy image: MMA writer

Murphy called the moment a "watershed" — a decade into Trump's grip on American politics, his own supporters openly reckoning with the idea that he was never the person they thought he was.

The disillusionment is showing up in the data. Times' analysis found that white voters without college degrees, who broke for Trump better than two to one in 2024, have swung hard against him on the economy. Where they once approved of his economic record by 30 points or more, recent polls show them disapproving by double digits. On the cost of living, just 36 percent told the Times they approved.

For Democratic operatives who spend their days hunting for disillusioned Trump voters to feature in campaign ads, the search has gotten noticeably less difficult.

Eva Kemp, a strategist with the Democratic group American Bridge, told the paper that finding those voters has "gotten easier," and that their disappointment now feels more raw and more personal. Women, she said, have run out of patience fastest. In one recent focus group of working-class white voters in Iowa, she recounted, nearly all of the women handed Trump a grade of D or F. The men graded him more gently. Republican strategists, granted anonymity to discuss their party's weak spots, told the Times they were seeing the same gender split.

Tim Spencer, a 72-year-old retired tool and die maker from Pella, Iowa, who voted for Trump, told the paper that filling his Chevy pickup now runs about $140, up from $90. The camping trips he and his wife once took across the Midwest have shrunk to the borders of his own state.

Carl Wallnau, a 35-year-old outside Fort Worth who backed Trump on his promise to lower gas prices, said those promises simply never materialized. He now plans to vote third party in 2026, according to the report.

"I'm reminded of Bill Clinton," Wallnau told the Times. "It's the economy, stupid."

"Susie Wiles is on her last leg," Blundell said, sharing what sources told him. "She just doesn't want to be associated with this stuff anymore."

The Daily Mail reported that Wiles was mostly upset about the appointment of Bill Pulte as the acting Director of National Intelligence. Blundell said that it's telling for her to be "this disgusted by his pick for DNI," and suggested that her frustrations went beyond that.

"You don't have to look too far for the damage that this family is doing, not just in the United States, but also in Albania," Blundell said, referring to the protests over Ivanka Trump's planned resort.

Schmidt gave his two cents, saying, "If you held a gun to my head and make me guess what happened here, I would say that Susie Wiles probably threatened to quit."

The warning came in a Times analysis that traced a remarkable collapse in Trump's economic standing with white voters who don't hold a college degree — the demographic that has anchored his coalition since 2016 and broke for him better than two to one in 2024.

On the eve of the 2018 midterms, the paper found, those voters approved of Trump's handling of the economy by margins of 30 points or more. Today, polls show them disapproving by anywhere from 14 points to north of 30.

Recent surveys put his economic approval with the group across the 30s and 40s: 33 percent in a Fox News poll, 39 percent at CBS News, 40 percent in the NPR/PBS/Marist poll and 43 percent at CNN. On the cost of living specifically, the Times found just 36 percent approved. Fox pegged approval of his inflation handling at 25 percent.

Pollsters in both parties told the paper the slide is being driven by stubbornly high prices for gas and groceries, Trump's tariffs and the war in Iran.

Trump has not done himself many favors on this. The president recently told reporters in the Oval Office, "I love the inflation," after previously brushing off rising gas prices and saying he doesn't factor in Americans' financial strain when deciding how to wind down the Iran war. That last remark, the Times noted, is already running in Democratic attack ads.

His team appears to know it has a problem. Treasury this month rolled out a report touting how workers benefited from last year's tax cuts, and Trump's MAGA Inc. super PAC issued its first statement since the 2024 election — pointedly, about tax relief for the working and middle class.

Democrats see an opening, drawing up plans to compete in whiter, more rural states like Iowa that have trended red for years. They don't need to win blue-collar white voters outright; losing them by less could be enough.

Veteran Republican pollster Neil Newhouse summed up the bind for the president's party. The only figure capable of re-energizing the base, he said, is the same one who deflated it: "Which is Trump."