THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

At least 109 people have died amid devastating flooding in Texas. Distressingly, 27 deaths occurred at a summer camp for girls, and the toll continues to rise.  This week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt angrily lashed out [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpDDCgC2alY] at the news media and Democrats for asking whether [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/05/us/politics/texas-floods-warnings-vacancies.html] Trump administration policies bear any blame for the disaster’s impact. What struck us, though, is her demand that we all treat this as a “national” tragedy. She’s right that we should do this. But that solicitude is precisely what Donald Trump and MAGA deny to non-MAGA America at other urgent moments. And that’s the true MAGA ethic at its ugliest. We talked to New Republic staff writer Kate Aronoff, who has a new piece on all this fallout [https://newrepublic.com/article/197662/democrats-should-say-who-really-blame-flooding-texas]. We discuss why Leavitt is wrong to silence hard questions, why Democrats should talk about GOP priorities at times like these, and why MAGA’s approach to solidarity is so deeply twisted.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

At a rally, President Trump declared [https://x.com/atrupar/status/1940935391483134181] that he now may suspending deportations for farmworkers and other migrant workers. Trump openly admitted this will anger the “radical right,” by which he likely meant Stephen Miller and others who want every last undocumented immigrant in this country removed—or else. Indeed, leading MAGA influencers sharply attacked the move: One declared [https://www.mediamatters.org/immigration/charlie-kirk-responds-trumps-remarks-farm-and-hotel-workers-if-you-want-break-our] that it will “break” the MAGA coalition. The other flatly demanded [https://www.mediamatters.org/immigration/daily-wire-host-you-cant-just-deport-ones-face-tattoos-you-do-kind-have-deport-abuela] that Trump keep on deporting “grandmothers.” We think all this should be understood as a display of weakness: Trump badly wants the public to think he’s considering relaxing his mass deportation regime precisely when Congress has given him [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/07/04/trump-bill-ice-immigrant-detention/] tens of billions of additional dollars for it. We talked to journalist, historian, and podcaster Garrett Graff [https://longshadowpodcast.com/], who has a new piece on his Substack [https://www.doomsdayscenario.co/p/four-fears-about-ice-trump-s-new-masked-monster-bf1f7205365d4b27?_bhlid=6016a0c3a0b4e6b4e9c67a2de6467f710c0572e9&utm_campaign=four-fears-about-ice-trump-s-new-masked-monster&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=www.doomsdayscenario.co] about what’s coming. He explains why rapidly expansion of Trump’s paramilitary force is so dangerous, how his effort to pseudo-moderate on deportations has exposed serious political vulnerabilities, and why he has no easy way out of them. Listen to this episode here [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-daily-blast-with-greg-sargent/id1728152109]. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

In today’s episode, Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg makes a crucial point: During months of debate about President Trump’s now-signed budget bill, there was very little public debate about what its explosion in Immigration and Customs Enforcement funding will inflict on America. Rosenberg chalks this up in part to Democrats’ failure to engage on the matter. We discuss the bill’s extraordinarily large health care cuts and its massive upward redistribution of wealth—and how Democrats should attack that. But now that it has passed, it’s also sinking in that the tens of billion of dollars [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/07/04/trump-bill-ice-immigrant-detention/] the bill pours into expanding Trump’s detention complex will supercharge those masked, unidentified [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvzjN3sQ6Hw] “secret police” that keep snatching migrants and legally-present immigrants off the streets. The whole project just got much darker. Rosenberg also discusses the intense civil conflict that this is already starting to unleash [https://www.foxnews.com/us/multiple-arrested-anti-ice-protesters-clash-police-us-troops-los-angeles], and why it will get much worse. He reflects on how Democrats can campaign against the “shocking” darkness that Trump is inflicting on the country.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio [https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

This week, President Donald Trump issued many angry threats [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jul/01/trump-zohran-mamdani-citizenship] against Zohran Mamdani, the underdog winner of New York Democratic mayoral primary. Trump has been attacking [https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114783678604446726] Mamdani, a state Assemblyman, as a “Communist,”  threatening [https://x.com/atrupar/status/1940089228475458048] to arrest him along with other foes [https://www.mediaite.com/media/news/trump-says-hed-consider-arresting-bidens-homeland-security-secretary-id-take-a-look-at-that/], and questioning [https://x.com/atrupar/status/1940089228475458048] Mamdani’s U.S. citizenship, hinting at a possible effort to try to strip his citizenship.  What caught our eye is Mamdani’s response [https://bsky.app/profile/gregsargent.bsky.social/post/3lsykdymd7k2u]: It was sharply worded, illuminated the real stakes in this battle in a novel way, and effectively declared that the threat posed by Trump’s secret police to immigrants actually threatens us all. Democrats can learn from this, because Trump’s threats to denaturalize foes may soon become real. We talked to David Bier, director of immigration studies at the Cato Institute. He explains what Trump would need to do to denaturalize Mamdani and other political opponents, what liberals and Democrats be preparing for right now, and why basic freedoms are hanging in the balance—for all of us.  Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio [https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

The Senate just passed [https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/01/business/poor-americans-senate-legislation.html] President Trump’s big budget bill, which will cut $1 trillion from Medicaid to fund huge tax cuts for the rich. In a remarkable series of angry [https://x.com/JDVance/status/1940018306485748067] tweets [https://x.com/JDVance/status/1939889575108686070], Vice President JD Vance downplayed the Medicaid cuts while saying what really matters is the bill’s massive funding for ICE and migrant detention. It was a striking and very revealing moment: Vance basically told MAGA voters not to think too much about losing their Medicaid benefits; instead focus on how many migrants the bill will end up jailing and deporting! That scam—getting voters to hate on immigrants so they don’t notice that Republicans are massively redistributing wealth upwards—is integral to getting the Medicaid cuts passed. But will voters buy it? We talked to Kristen Crowell, who is campaigning against the bill for the advocacy group Fair Share America. She explains how Trump voters and other constituencies are reacting to the bill in many communities with anger and fear; why the public is not receptive right now to typical GOP attacks on the safety net; and whether this can be converted into midterm gains for Democrats. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]