👌🏾 Every word in this newsletter was written by a human being. We use AI for research help, but not text generation. See tips from my 24-day, 5-country AI training tour of Asia. And read my 20+ essays on AI.
🗞️ Every Sunday, from 8:30-9:30 am ET, Neil Parekh and I host the NYT Readalong. Join us live or later on my social feeds or at Digimentors.group/nytreadalong. Now also a podcast on Apple & Spotify. Today, you can download an exclusive PDF version of NYT special section on the World Cup.
✍️ Submissions are open for the India Philanthropy Alliance’s Youth Essay Competition! [Partner message]
🙏 Thank you to all our new paid subscribers! They and our sponsors help us do more. Here’s how you can support Sree’s Sunday Note, even if you can’t afford to pay.
DONALD TRUMP’S APPROVAL RATINGS ARE TANKING. Some Republicans are turning against him (ever so slowly), independents are over it, and everyone else is left wondering what took all of these people so long.
[Before you cheer too loudly, here’s what I wrote in March: The midterms are looking good, but I have full faith in the Dems to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.]
We have hit the MAGA vs. The World stage of Trump II, and it is as ugly as it is dangerous—and it is plenty dangerous. CNN’s poll averages have Trump’s disapproval rating at a shocking 63%. That is active disapproval from nearly 2/3 of the country. Given the current trendline, it’s not hard to see a world where this number gets to 70% or higher.
We don’t need any sort of deep analysis to understand why, it’s all right in front of us—or, those of us who allow ourselves to see the true depth of moral rot at the heart of this administration.
There are many, many headline issues. Here are three that, to me, embody the worst of Trump’s impulses-turned-policies:
Iran
The catastrophic war with Iran has driven prices up in every corner of the global economy. Now, Trump says he wants peace and a return to the status quo (in a war he’s claimed to have won multiple times). In 2018, Trump unilaterally pulled the U.S. out of the Obama-negotiated JCPOA with Iran—an agreement that had effectively curtailed Iran’s nuclear program. Now, the hope is to reach even a markedly worse version of that, and even that seems impossible in the near-term. Here’s a real exchange from June 2 between Trump and CNBC reporter Eamon Javers:
Javers: Do you think the negotiations are over now, or is this a bluff?
Trump: I don’t care if they’re over, honestly. I really don’t care. I couldn’t care less. If they’re over, they’re over. If they’re not, you know, I think they took too much time. Frankly, I thought they started to get very boring.
“Boring.”
ICE Unleashed
The horrors that ICE inflicted, and continues to inflict, on Minnesota, Illinois, New Jersey, New York and several other states is truly vile. It has also served as a calling that has galvanized communities across the country. Support networks, legal help, activism, support—as happens so often, we saw the best of America in its worst times.
It will continue. ICE is remarkably unpopular. A January Marist poll had 65% of Americans saying ICE “had gone too far.” Again, the only support for these things are from the most hardcore MAGA people on Earth. From the Marist poll:
91% of Democrats and 68% of independents say ICE's action are making Americans somewhat less or much less safe.
In March, Navigator Research released a comprehensive set of polling data on immigration and ICE under the headline, “Americans are fed up with cruel immigration policies”—the data more than supports the headline.
This is a Russian nesting doll of a minority of the electorate.
January 6th Insurrectionists
The attack on the U.S. Capitol was MAGA vs. The World come to life. Trump pardoned 1,500 of the insurrectionists, calling them “political prisoners.” According to Katherine Pompilio’s reporting for Lawfare, almost 100 of them have gone on to commit more crimes, some quite severe:
One Jan. 6 pardonee was convicted in February 2026 of child molestation and sentenced to life in prison. Another was convicted in 2025 of reckless homicide.
At least 14, meanwhile, have been charged with sex crimes or crimes related to child sexual abuse material (CSAM), and at least six have faced domestic violence charges. Others have faced charges for physical assaults, illegal firearms possession, or other violent crimes. At least 20 have been charged with driving under the influence (DUI) of alcohol or drugs or public intoxication.
One of the pardoned rioters, Elias Irizarry, was hired at the Pentagon for a sensitive counterterrorism role. When he was a 19-year-old cadet at the Citadel military academy in Charleston, South Carolina, he stormed the Capitol building wearing a MAGA hat.
A New Wave of Loyalists
As evidenced by the polling data, literally no one wants any of this aside from the most ardent of MAGAists. We are being governed by a group with support from hardcore GOP primary voters—everyone else is out on Trump. This is from a poll released on June 3 by Marquette University:
Trump’s influence within the Republican electorate is also seen in his job approval. Among the 72% of Republicans favorable to MAGA, 93% approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while among the 28% of Republicans not favorable to MAGA, Trump’s approval falls to 36%.
Trump’s answer has been predictable: Consolidate and double down. We have entered even more dangerous territory now.
Attorney General nominee Todd Blanche is at the top of the list. It was hard to stomach Pam Bondi in the role, but Blanche makes her look almost tolerable. He used to be Trump’s lead defense attorney, a role he seems to porting over to the Dept. of Justice.
Trump’s new acting Director of National Intelligence, Bill Pulte, has used his seat as the head of the Federal Housing Finance Agency to launch investigations into Trump’s political enemies—which are now being investigated by the Government Accountability Office. He has no intelligence or military background to speak of, but Trump likes him, and he thinks Pulte can use the vast U.S. intelligence apparatus to “figure out” how Trump lost to Biden—he said it himself.
The Corruption
It’s blatant, it’s everywhere, and it’s wrong. The president’s entire near-orbit is benefitting handsomely from this go-round.
Here’s Senator Jon Ossoff talking about mining deals with Kazakhstan for the president’s adult sons
Here’s Perfect Union reporting on the profiteers of the private prison industry who are seeing a boon with ICE contracts
Here’s the PBS Newshour on Trump’s active stock trading during his presidency. Trump’s personal wealth has grown to more than $6 billion—he has added nearly $4 billion to that number since 2024. This is not coincidence, it’s self-dealing at a scale unseen in American politics.
These are just a few items from a list that spans from D.C. to Mar-a-lago. Trump allies (see: donors) are benefitting from his gutting of environmental protections for federal lands, oil and gas, and so so much more. It’s all happening in plain sight.
MAGA vs. The World, indeed.
— Sree / Twitter | IG | LinkedIn | FB | YouTube | Spread | TikTok
43% of 2026 is already over. What will you do with the remaining 57%? LMK and I’ll see you made it all the way down here.
One of the Best Things I’ve Ever Read #7
We’re aiming to create the best reading/viewing/listening list possible. It’s quite simple—we are crowdsourcing the writing that has stuck with you, that one thing you read last month, last year, or 20 years ago, that has stuck in your brain. This week, it’s an excellent addition from Matthew Quint.
Title: “Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff”
By Christopher Moore
From Matthew:
Effectively tackling religious content from a fictional perspective is always difficult, and Moore pulls it off remarkably in "Lamb."
Although, I am sure some would view it as sacrilegious, the book blends faith, history, and secularism in an unforgettably humorous and heartfelt way.
Matthew Quint works on brand strategy, emerging tech, events and thought leadership content. Personally, he’s a man hanging on by a thread to his youthful hope for a world full of listening and understanding.
If you have a story to share, please do!
Have an idea for anything we’re up to? Let’s collaborate! sree.sreenivasan1@gmail.com
Did you catch our midweek bonus newsletter?
