The Week Trump's Base and His Own Lawyers Both Quit Doing the Paperwork
Three losses this week, and they share a throughline: nobody wants to follow through anymore — not the voters filling out exit surveys, and not the government lawyers who got a $1.8 million fine thrown out for skipping a comment period. Pour something cold — the follow-through just isn't there this week.
1. Trump's Approval Hits a New Floor — and His Own 2024 Voters Are Bailing
Pew Research's October 8 survey found just 30% of Americans approve of Trump's job performance — within a point of the floor he hit on his way out the door after his first term — while 68% disapprove, the worst mark Pew has recorded in his second term. The poll surveyed 5,062 adults from September 28 to October 4 and found confidence collapsing even among people who put him back in office: just 67% of 2024 Trump voters still approve, down from 95% early in his second term. Mediaite notes that puts him within spitting distance of the 29% he limped out of his first term with.
He spent four years swearing he'd never be as unpopular as he was walking out the door the first time. He missed that promise by one point — and his own 2024 voters ran the numbers themselves.
2. The Voters Trump Bragged About Winning Just Walked Out on Him
An NBC News/Telemundo poll released October 4 found just 27% of Latino registered voters approve of Trump's job performance, with 69% disapproving — including 78% who disapprove of how he's handled the cost of living. The survey of 800 Latino voters, taken September 21–28, found they now favor Democratic control of Congress by 59% to 35%, nearly double the Democratic edge at the same point in 2024. The Republican Party's image among Latino voters has cratered right along with him, with 62% now viewing it negatively, up from 46% two years ago.
He spent 2024 bragging he'd permanently realigned Latino voters. Turns out he was just renting them, and the lease came due early.
3. Trump's $1.8 Million Migrant Fines Just Got Blocked — Over a Paperwork Fail
U.S. District Judge George O'Toole blocked a DHS rule letting ICE hit migrants with fines of up to $1.8 million per person for staying in the country after a final deportation order, ruling the agency skipped the public-comment period required before adopting the policy and leaned on boilerplate forms that never explained why any individual owed a cent. The Legal Aid Society, which represents the plaintiffs, said the October order stays every fine issued under the rule — more than 21,500 of them, totaling over $6 billion — while the class-action case moves forward. DHS had pitched the fines as a deterrent; O'Toole's order says the agency never showed its work.
They built a $1.8 million fine and forgot to file the form that makes a fine legal. A parking ticket clears a higher bar than that.
Now go back to doomscrolling. You've earned five minutes of not-doom.