THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

Stephen Miller recently erupted in rage in a private meeting with ICE officials, demanding that they hit supercharged new arrest quotas, reports [https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2025/07/trump-ice-morale-immigration/683477/] The Atlantic. Yet in a surprise twist, the report also details that Miller’s demands for maximum arrests are driving morale at ICE into the crapper. Importantly, what’s irking ICE agents is precisely that the mission of arresting as many low-level offenders as possible is pulling them away from pursuing serious criminals. This brutally unmasks one of Trump’s biggest scams: It demonstrates clearly that his mass deportations are not at all about public safety and are only about getting as many peaceful and non-criminal immigrants out of the country as possible. We talked to one of our favorite observers on this issue, FWD.us [http://fwd.us/] president Todd Schulte. He explains how all this reveals the soft underbelly of Trump’s political strength, why MAGA is now making vile memes about shackling immigrants, and and what ordinary people can do to effectively resist the coming horrors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices [https://megaphone.fm/adchoices]

It appears to be dawning on President Trump that he will not be ending the Russia-Ukraine war in one day, as he promised during the campaign. Trump’s frustration at Vladimir Putin is rising: This week he accused Putin [https://www.politico.com/news/2025/07/08/trump-putin-russia-sanctions-00442269] of hitting him with “bullshit,” and even admitted Putin’s word to him is “meaningless.” This comes as it’s now being reported that Putin is escalating the war against Ukraine, and that he’s brushing aside Trump’s anger about it. Add it all up and Trump is plainly humiliated, realizing that Putin is laughing off his demand for “peace.” We talked to Mona Charen, policy editor at The Bulwark, who writes well about the Trumpified GOP’s embrace of Putin [https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-vance-zelensky-oval-office-graham-rubio-thiessen]. She explains how Putin has long played Trump, why Putin feels free to humiliate him, and what the various scenarios ahead look like. 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]

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]