Trump’s Secret War Fears Leak Out as GOP Grows Unnerved: “Alarm Bells”

THE DAILY BLAST with Greg Sargent

The New Republic

News, Politics

4.4 • 800 Ratings

🗓️ 21 April 2026

⏱️ 24 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On Monday, Donald Trump exploded in telling tirades. In one, he raged that he (just he) is winning the war “BY A LOT” and bizarrely stressed that “I’m in charge!” In another, he emphasized that he feels “under no pressure whatsoever” to reach a deal with Iran. Why is Trump so fearful of appearing to lose control? Well, The Wall Street Journal has a striking new report relating that gas prices and the war recently had the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis “looming large in his mind. He’s “grappling behind the scenes with just how badly things could go wrong.” In short: He fears looking like Jimmy Carter as the midterms approach. Indeed, Politico reports that prices have some Republicans sounding “alarm bells” about this fall. We talked to The Lever’s David Sirota, narrator of the “Master Plan” podcast, whose new season focuses on the hyper-powerful presidency. We discuss Trump’s growing fears that events are slipping from his grasp, how this is rooted paradoxically in his assertion of an imperial presidency, how decades of failure led to this moment, and how Democrats can run against his imperial rule. Looking for More from the DSR Network? Click Here: https://linktr.ee/deepstateradio Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:45.8	This is the Daily Blast from the New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network.
0:48.1	I'm your host, Greg Sargent. Donald Trump is losing control of events to a degree that appears new, and he's furious about it.
1:03.0	He unleashed a series of wild truth social tirades over the war, at the news media, and at Democrats.
1:10.2	He's reportedly been very angry over gas prices,
1:13.2	and he's even imagining himself in the role of a Jimmy Carter-like figure. Meanwhile,
1:18.9	Republicans are starting to sound alarm bells over prices and fear they could get killed in the
1:24.3	midterms, according to another report. If you listen to Trump's language,
1:28.6	you can see that he actually did think he could rule as an autocrat who single-handedly decrees
1:33.8	how all events will go. There's a reason he thought this. Trump and the people around him
1:39.0	intended his second term as the culmination of efforts to concentrate quasi-unlimited powers in the presidency.
1:46.6	So it's urgent that this be seen to fail.
1:49.8	Journalist David Soroda of The Lever narrates a podcast called Master Plan, and its second season is all about that vision of the presidency,
1:58.3	so we're talking to him about all this now.
2:00.6	David, nice to have you on.
2:02.4	Thank you. Thanks so much for having me. So Donald Trump just exploded on truth social over media
	...

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