April 21, 2026 - by Heather Cox Richardson

[ad_1] There may be the unmistakable feeling that the wheels are coming off the MAGA bus.

Alayna Treene and Kevin Liptak of CNN reported final evening that by the top of final week, negotiators for the U.S. and Iran seemed to be on the verge of hammering out an finish to hostilities earlier than the two-week ceasefire ends on Wednesday. Then Trump took to the media to crow that Iranian leaders had “agreed to all the pieces,” together with the removing of its enriched uranium, and that “Iran has agreed by no means to shut the Strait of Hormuz once more.” He promised that Iran had agreed to finish its nuclear program ceaselessly and that talks “ought to go in a short time.” Trump declared the breakthrough was “A GREAT AND BRILLIANT DAY FOR THE WORLD!” and requested why media shops questioning the alleged deal didn’t “simply say, on the proper time, JOB WELL DONE, MR. PRESIDENT?”

Iranian negotiators mentioned Trump’s claims had been false and that if he didn’t take away the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports, they'd reclose the Strait of Hormuz that they had simply opened. “The Iranians didn’t admire [Trump] negotiating by way of social media and making it seem as if that they had signed off on points they hadn’t but agreed to, and ones that aren’t widespread with their folks again house,” a supply instructed Treene and Liptak.

Over the weekend, Iranians closed the strait and the U.S. fired on an Iranian vessel. On Sunday, whilst two senior U.S. authorities officers had been on tv saying Vice President J.D. Vance would lead a brand new spherical of talks in Pakistan, Trump was on the cellphone telling reporters that he wouldn’t. On Monday, Trump instructed a reporter that Vance was within the air about to the touch down in Pakistan simply minutes earlier than Vance’s motorcade arrived on the White Home.

After Iranian officers mentioned immediately they weren't positive they'd reply to U.S. positions or go to Pakistan for talks, Vance’s journey has been placed on maintain. Iran’s Overseas Ministry spokesperson, Esmail Baghaei, complained of “contradictory messages, inconsistent habits and unacceptable actions by the American facet,” on Iran’s state media.

For his half, Trump blamed the Democrats for the chaos in U.S. diplomacy. “The Democrats are doing all the pieces potential to harm the very robust place we're in with respect to Iran,” his social media account posted yesterday. The put up insisted “it will likely be carried out RIGHT, and we received’t let the Weak and Pathetic Democrats, TRAITORS ALL, who for years have been speaking concerning the Risks of Iran, and that one thing needs to be carried out, however now, since I’m the one doing it, belittle the accomplishments of our Navy and the Trump Administration. That is being completely executed, on the size of Venezuela, only a larger, extra advanced operation.”

As David S. Bernstein of Good Politics/Dangerous Politics famous, Trump’s account this morning reposted one other account claiming that Iran was getting ready to execute eight girls, displaying AI-generated photos of them. Trump posted: “To the Iranian leaders who will quickly be in negotiations with my representatives: I might drastically admire the discharge of those girls. I'm positive that they may respect the truth that you probably did so. Please do them no hurt! Could be an amazing begin to our negotiations!!!” As Bernstein put it: Trump urged Iran “to start out peace negotiations by releasing non-existent, AI-generated girls some rando posted about on X.”

Alan Rappeport of the New York Occasions reported immediately that Trump is contemplating utilizing cash from the U.S. Treasury to shore up the funds of the oil-rich United Arab Emirates, which have been harm by the Iran warfare. After the story appeared, Zach Everson of Public Citizen identified that Sheikh Tahnoon bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who controls the sovereign wealth of the United Arab Emirates, has directed lots of of tens of millions to Trump personally, shopping for 49% of the Trump household’s World Liberty Monetary and investing $2 billion of WLF’s USD1 stablecoin.

Tonight, Trump introduced he's extending the ceasefire with Iran till Iran comes up with a proposal to finish the combating completely. Iran has responded by saying Trump’s extension “means nothing” and recommended it was a “ploy to purchase time for a shock strike.”

Based on a brand new ballot out immediately from Power in Numbers / Verasight, performed between April 10 and April 14, simply 35% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s job efficiency. Sixty-one p.c disapprove, a brand new low. Seventy-two p.c of Individuals disapprove of the way in which Trump is dealing with rising costs. In a generic poll for Congress, voters favor Democrats over Republicans by 50% to 43%, a margin of seven factors.

Administration officers’ method to the midterm elections appears to be to proceed to sow mistrust of elections. Following Patel’s declare, on Sunday, that there would quickly be arrests stemming from the 2020 presidential election, Harmeet Dhillon, assistant lawyer normal of the Civil Rights Division of the Division of Justice (DOJ) launched a letter from April 14 demanding {that a} Wayne County, Michigan, elections official give it information from Wayne County and Detroit from 2024 and alleging that there was fraud in 2020. Though Trump received Michigan, he misplaced Wayne County by virtually 250,000 votes.

Michigan lawyer normal Dana Nessel and secretary of state Jocelyn Benson wrote within the Detroit Free Press that “this demand isn’t about election integrity—it’s a couple of weaponized DOJ making an attempt to please a president who doesn’t need to be held accountable on the poll field by voters bored with the chaos of his administration. It’s additionally concerning the upcoming elections in November and in 2028, which he's working to discredit by sowing doubt as to the safety and equity of the method. It’s not going to work with us, and it’s not going to carry up in court docket,” they wrote. “Michigan’s elections are protected and safe.”

Trump appears, although, to be courting the bottom that in 2021 attacked the U.S. Capitol to attempt to maintain him in energy. After offending his base first by posting a picture of himself as Jesus Christ after which by insulting Pope Leo XIV, Trump is collaborating this week in an occasion referred to as “America Reads the Bible.” Kaanita Iyer and Aleena Fayaz of CNN report that Trump is predicted to learn 2 Chronicles 7:11–22 from the Oval Workplace. The identical verse was learn by Cowboys for Trump founder Couy Griffin on the January 6, 2021, rebel, and is related to white evangelicals’ perception God despatched Trump to heal America.

Trump’s vulnerability is displaying on Capitol Hill. In Public Discover immediately, Noah Berlatsky examined Home speaker Mike Johnson’s no good, very dangerous day final Thursday. With a Republican majority within the Home of solely three seats and a dramatically weakened president, Republican Home members handed Johnson two embarrassing losses on Thursday.

First, Republicans joined with Democrats first to cross a discharge petition to power a vote on a measure to guard the Short-term Protected Standing (TPS) for 350,000 Haitian immigrants, after which they handed the measure itself.

Trump’s administration has left his claims to need to deport undocumented criminals far within the mud, working arduous to do away with authorized immigrants as properly. When she was homeland safety secretary, Kristi Noem ignored the necessities for evaluating TPS and easily refused to comply with routine extensions of TPS for folks from Venezuela, Honduras, Nicaragua, Nepal, Ukraine, Afghanistan, and Cameroon.

Haitian TPS holders sued, noting Noem’s obvious racial animus as a driving consider her resolution and that Haiti stays harmful within the wake of the 2010 earthquake that destabilized the nation. In February, U.S. District Choose Ana Reyes paused the lack of Haitian immigrants’ TPS till the lawsuit works its method by way of the courts. Final month, Consultant Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) introduced a discharge petition to power a vote on a measure to revive TPS to Haitian immigrants.

Johnson has tried to do Trump’s bidding despite the fact that it means ignoring what members of Congress really need. It's potential for members to power a measure to the ground even after the speaker bottles it up by way of one thing referred to as a “discharge petition,” by getting a majority of members of Congress to comply with override the speaker, however such an motion is exceedingly uncommon as a result of it requires members of the bulk to facet with the minority towards their very own speaker. Or it was exceedingly uncommon earlier than this Congress. Herb Scribner of Axios famous final yr that there have been seven profitable discharge petitions within the 30 years between 1985 and 2015; there have been the identical quantity from 2023 to 2025.

4 Republicans, all of them from purple districts, joined all of the Democrats to signal Pressley’s discharge petition. Then when the measure got here up for a vote, six extra Republicans voted in favor of it. As Berlatsky notes, the invoice most likely received’t cross the Senate, however not solely did it display Johnson’s weak spot, it additionally, as Jamie Dupree of Common Order famous, was an actual rebuke to Trump on immigration. And it was bipartisan.

That was not the top of Johnson’s dangerous day. The Overseas Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) of 1978 was scheduled to run out on April 20, and Trump and Republican loyalists wished merely to resume it. However members of each events have points with Part 702 of that act, which permits the federal government to gather details about the communications of foreigners with out getting a warrant from a choose. However there are rising indicators the federal government can also be gathering information from Individuals with no warrant, and members of each events involved about authorities overreach have refused to increase the regulation with out reforms to 702.

Republican leaders tried to power by way of a five-year extension simply after midnight on Friday, however whereas 4 Democrats voted in favor of the measure, twelve Republicans voted towards it, sending the measure right down to a loss by 20 votes. Then Johnson tried to push by way of an 18-month extension. Twenty Republicans voted towards even contemplating it. Lastly, the Home agreed to increase the regulation for simply ten days.

At this time, Virginians handed a redistricting referendum that can increase the Democrats’ probabilities of successful 4 extra seats within the U.S. Home. Redistricting in the course of a decade is uncommon, however after Trump pressed Texas to rejigger its maps to offer Republicans extra Home seats, California retaliated with its personal momentary redistricting to offset the brand new Texas seats. Different states adopted go well with. As David A. Lieb of the Related Press defined immediately, Republicans presently imagine that their redistricting of Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas will web them 9 extra seats. Democrats assume their redistricting of California, together with a court-ordered redistricting of Utah, will get them an extra six seats. They're hoping that redistricting Virginia briefly will make up the distinction.

Zachary Roth of Democracy Docket famous that Trump ally Steve Bannon warned on his podcast Monday that “Democrats are demonic” and mentioned that if allowed to have energy, they may impeach Trump. “Not simply, are they going to take energy and use these 4 seats to question Trump?” he mentioned, “However they’re going to make use of this as a template for the remainder of the nation. It’s coming.”

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Notes:

https://www.npr.org/2026/02/03/g-s1-108463/judge-blocks-ending-protections-haitians

https://apnews.com/article/virginia-redistricting-election-congress-trump-78e0e68100119011b1b439634f6b6fa1

https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/bannon-warns-demonic-dems-will-impeach-trump-if-they-win-virginia-redistricting-vote/

https://www.cnn.com/2026/04/20/politics/social-media-posts-trump-iran-deal

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/04/21/world/iran-us-war-trump-news/heres-the-latest?smid=url-share

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This article reports results from the April 2026 Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll. You can read our previous poll releases here. Subscribers to Strength In Numbers have access to additional visuals and a full archive of crosstabs here, and can suggest questions for future polls via the comments section below…