Key Point: “Three central campaign promises—that he would end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and boost the economy—are in peril. And for the first time in his 200 days back in office, the White House has begun to worry about members of the president’s own party defying him.”

The Atlantic: Things Aren’t Going Donald Trump’s Way

By Jonathan Lemire

• Three central campaign promises—that he would end the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and boost the economy—are in peril. And for the first time in his 200 days back in office, the White House has begun to worry about members of the president’s own party defying him.

• Tomorrow, the clock runs out on the two-week window that Trump gave Russia to reach a cease-fire with Ukraine. The president has been upset by his inability to end the war. … Trump likewise has grown exasperated with Israel’s prosecution of the war in the Gaza Strip, a conflict that could soon escalate; Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyhu said today that his military plans to fully occupy the famine-plagued Strip.

• The other deadline is Trump’s latest vow on tariffs, which go into effect today for 60 nations, with rates ranging from 10 to 41 percent. … [T]he economy has shown new signs of weakness, with stubbornly high prices potentially set to rise again because of the tariffs and, most potently, a recent jobs report poor enough that Trump lashed out against the bureaucrat who compiled it; last week, he fired the Bureau of Labor Statistics commissioner, claiming, without evidence, that the jobs numbers were bogus. That unprecedented act of petulance risks undermining Wall Street’s confidence in the economy and undercutting Trump’s campaign pledge to give the United States another economic “golden age.”

• Those geopolitical and economic headwinds have been joined by forceful political ones. Since going out on August recess, Republican lawmakers have been heckled at town halls while trying to defend the president’s signature legislative accomplishment, the One Big Beautiful Bill. And some of those same Republicans, in a rare act of rebellion, have questioned Trump’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein matter, a scandal that the president, try as he may, simply has been unable to shake.

• The mood in the White House has darkened in the past month, as the president’s challenges have grown deeper. The ongoing Russia-Ukraine war has become intensely frustrating for Trump, two White House officials and a close outside adviser told me. The president had truly believed that his relationship with Putin would bring about a quick end to the conflict. But instead, Putin has taken advantage of Trump’s deference to him and has openly defied the president—“embarrassed him,” one of the officials told me—by ignoring his calls for a cease-fire and ratcheting up his strikes on Ukrainian cities. 

• Then there is Epstein. Trump has desperately wished the story away. He feels deeply betrayed by his MAGA supporters who believed him when he intimated during the campaign that something was nefarious about the government’s handling of the case, and who now have a hard time believing him when he says their suspicions are actually bogus.

• When it comes to his own political standing, Trump is also trying to create his own reality, seeming to will away the challenges he faces. In an interview with CNBC on Tuesday, he insisted that he has “the best poll numbers I’ve ever had,” claiming his approval was north of 70 percent. But that number represented his approval among Republicans, the interviewer told him. In fact, his overall approval rating is hovering at just about 40 percent. When corrected, all Trump could do was call the whole thing “fake.”