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Politico
a day ago
- Politics
- Politico
‘There's a lot of fatigue': Trump books draw lackluster sales
To wit: 'Butler: The Untold Story of the Near Assassination of Donald Trump and the Fight for America's Heartland,' by conservative journalist Salena Zito, came out the same week as '2024' and sold about 23,000 hardcover copies, according to BookScan numbers, hitting No. 1 on the Times bestseller list. Zito said in a statement that she was 'deeply humbled by this ranking' and 'grateful to President Trump, who interviewed with me dozens of times for the book and generously encouraged people to read' it. Trump posted about the book on social media, including sharing a preorder link before its publication. 'That's a book that's being published to the MAGAs. So those books are always different in their numbers,' said a book agent. This follows other second-term Trump books experiencing lackluster sales. 'Trump in Exile,' by the Wall Street Journal's Meridith McGraw, has sold roughly 2,000 copies since its release last August, according to BookScan. Axios' Alex Isenstadt's 'Revenge: The Inside Story of Trump's Return to Power,' published in March, has sold around 3,000 copies so far, according to BookScan. McGraw and Isenstadt declined to comment. Author Michael Wolff became one of the masters of the Trump genre with 2018's 'Fire and Fury,' which sold more than 25,000 copies during its first week on sale in 2018 and went on to sell more than 900,000. But the writer sold only around 3,000 print copies during the equivalent first week publicity campaign for his latest installment 'All or Nothing: How Trump Recaptured America,' published in March. (It has now sold around 11,000 copies, according to BookScan.) As these books have posted middling sales figures, publishers are finding it hard to justify signing big advances for new Trump books. That's made it more difficult for political journalists to get lucrative book deals. 'Editors are not spending anywhere near the amount of money that they did this time eight years ago,' said one of the book agents. 'The days of just writing a book to write a book and checking the box for someone's career — those days are over.' 'We are taking on fewer projects in the space because the ones that we do take on, they basically have to rise to a mid six- or seven-figure deal,' said the agent. The person said that they talk with publishers who speak of 'a lot of fatigue in the market' and that there has to be 'a clear path on either breaking news or a 'wow factor' for a book to get that kind of money today.' The skepticism in the marketplace for political nonfiction, particularly Trump books, has led publishers and agents to try to get authors who are big brand names with built-in fan bases like Ezra Klein or Jake Tapper. Both have seen significant success this year with their books 'Abundance' (co-written with Derek Thompson) and 'Original Sin,' respectively. 'Abundance' has sold roughly 146,000 copies since its publication in March, according to BookScan. Tapper, one of the most prominent CNN anchors, was attached to Axios' Alex Thompson's Biden book project after his book deal had been cancelled. 'Original Sin,' which focused more on the 46th president than the 47th, became a No. 1 Times bestseller for two weeks and was on the bestseller list for almost two months. It has sold about 97,000 copies since its publication in May, according to BookScan.
Boston Globe
5 days ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
America, meet the Trump-Mamdani voter
'Trump and Zohran specifically? Gosh, I can't think of a specific person,' says Alexa Avilés, a New York City Council member from Brooklyn, who is, like Mamdani, a democratic socialist. 'I haven't seen any data on that,' says Lis Smith, a Democratic strategist and former aide to Mamdani opponent Andrew M. Cuomo who's become a critic of the former governor. 'I do not believe that the MAGAs in this borough flipped to Zohran,' says Donovan Richards Jr., the Queens borough president. 'I have not met a hardcore Trump supporter who is a hardcore Mamdani supporter,' says Shahana Hanif, a Democrat representing Brooklyn on the New York City Council. Advertisement Well, so much for that. Except… Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up 'They're everywhere,' says Farihah Akhtar, senior lead organizer with the group CAAAV Voice, which primarily organizes working-class Asian New Yorkers in places like Chinatown and Astoria. Nowhere or everywhere — which is it, New York? The answer could be important. It might reveal where, and how, the ends of the current political spectrum can double back on each other. And talking to voters who see something appealing in both Trump and Mamdani — despite the fact that their policy ideas, ideological allies and general visions of how government should operate could not be more different — could produce insights into how candidates might make themselves audible to potential supporters on the opposite side of America's vast political divide. Advertisement So let's see if we can't figure this out. People wait in line to enter Donald Trump's rally at New York's Madison Square Garden last October. Victor J. Blue/Victor J. Blue For The Washington Post A quick refresher: A few days after Trump's election, Mamdani — a 33-year-old New York State Assembly member from Astoria who was then a little-known candidate for mayor — had visited areas that shifted toward the now-president with a camera and microphone to talk to Trump supporters there about why they voted the way they did. In June, Mamdani shocked many observers by trouncing Cuomo and other opponents in the city's Democratic primary, making him the front-runner to lead the largest city in the United States. The apparent leftward, antiestablishment swing of New York's Democratic voters was especially interesting, given that Democrats lost support there in November compared with 2020, and pockets of the city moved toward Trump. Mamdani has drawn a connection between Trump's success and that of his own campaign. 'Brighton Beach went for Trump by 44 points. Last week, we won it by 16,' the candidate said in a video posted to his social media after his victory. 'College Point was a plus-11 Trump neighborhood. We took it by eight points.' And an analysis by the news publication Gothamist found that many of the election districts that went for both Trump in 2024 and Mamdani in 2025 clustered in working-class, immigrant neighborhoods like Corona and Flushing. This doesn't necessarily mean that lots of New Yorkers voted for both men. Last November's general election was open to all registered voters, while the June primary was a local contest open only to registered Democrats. So looking at Trump's numbers and Mamdani's is a bit like comparing a Big Apple and a smaller apple. Advertisement 'I'm sure he won a couple Democrats who voted for Trump,' says Michael Lange, a writer who's working on a book about the race, 'but it's just that the Trump vote share overwhelmingly comes from independents or Republicans, or Democrats who never vote in primaries. There probably weren't like, a ton.' As for our search, he had an idea. 'Get that gentleman from the Bronx.' Related : That gentleman from the Bronx is Yahay Obeid, an immigrant from Yemen and an air traffic control supervisor at John F. Kennedy International Airport. Obeid, a leader in the Yemeni American community, voted for both Trump and Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez last election - and then talked to multiple reporters about it. We reached Obeid by phone when he was at Home Depot, buying supplies for an upcoming move to Morris Park. As it turned out, Obeid did not vote for Mamdani — but only because a family emergency pulled him away on the day of the election, he said. But he does like Mamdani, and endorsed him on social media after hosting him at a candidate forum in the Bronx in May. People in his community are excited about a Muslim as New York's possible next mayor, he said. And although Obeid is more pro-police than he believes Mamdani is, he likes the way the Assembly member has talked about the breach between the rich and regular, working people like him. The billionaires earn a lot, and pay relatively little tax, he says. 'Is that fair? I don't think it's fair.' And not for nothing: He can't stand Cuomo. 'Everything is about him and his family,' Obeid said of the former governor, who has since said he will run against Mamdani as an independent. 'To the point where he renamed the Tappan Zee Bridge, right? Renamed it under his father's name, Mario Cuomo. Really? Like, the Tappan people, the natives of that land — the bridge was named after them. You take that away from them and you name it after your freaking dad. Who the hell are you to name that after your dad?' Advertisement His feelings toward Trump, who is not exactly shy about putting his family name on things, are warmer. Back in 2016, Obeid cast a losing vote for Hillary Clinton. 'And Trump went into office, and then just CNN was against him, everyone was against him,' he says. Obeid started paying attention and found that he agreed with the president's foreign policy toward Yemen, his handling of the economy, his efforts to keep houses of worship open during the days of covid lockdown. He became a fan and voted for Trump in the next two elections. What do Trump and Mamdani have in common, in Obeid's mind? A lack of complacency, a quality he associates with 'establishment' Democrats. He has no doubt that both men work '20 hours a day, every day, seven days a week,' for their people. When we asked Obeid if he could introduce us to any other Trump-Mamdani supporters, he put us in touch with Juan de la Cruz, a 32-year-old client account executive for Verizon. De la Cruz used to be a Democrat. But a few years ago, he told us, he was on his way back from getting a haircut when he was mugged by two men on motorcycles who took his jewelry. He says he recognized a Venezuelan flag patch on one of their leather jackets. The experience made him switch parties, thinking Trump's plans to seal the border would make the country safer. Last year he ran (unsuccessfully) for the State Assembly to represent Throggs Neck, in the Bronx, as a Republican. Related : Advertisement He also voted for Trump. But de la Cruz says he's been feeling unsettled by how the president is treating legal immigrants. It didn't seem fair to him that permanent residents (like the activist Mahmoud Khalil) could be targeted for saying they support Palestinians, many of whom own businesses where he lives. He thought those who were here illegally should get deported, but with due process. 'I'm like, 'Oh, my God, what have I done?'' he says now. And yet he stands by his vote for Trump: 'I did what I thought was right.' Since he's now a Republican, de la Cruz wasn't eligible to vote in the mayoral primary. But he says he's planning to vote for Mamdani in November because of the mayoral candidate's focus on the cost of living. 'I make over six figures, but sometimes I feel that money, sometimes it's not enough,' he says. He was struck by one of Mamdani's campaign refrains, which de la Cruz now paraphrased: 'Every politician, they all say that New York is the best city in the world. But what's the best city if people can't afford to live in it?' Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee for mayor of New York City, at a labor union rally in Manhattan on July 2. What do Trump and Mamdani have in common? According to one vote, a lack of complacency, a quality that is associated with 'establishment' Democrats. HIROKO MASUIKE/NYT Obeid and de la Cruz are relatively outspoken. We were curious about the less-public New York residents who voted for Trump and who also support Mamdani. So we asked for help from some local political groups that do work in those neighborhoods where both Trump and Mamdani got a lot of votes. Advertisement One was CAAAV Voice, the organization focused on Asian American voters, which had contacted an estimated 40,000 in their effort to get out the vote for Mamdani. 'Every day that we were on the phones and doors, we would meet people who had voted for Trump,' Akhtar, the CAAAV Voice organizer, assured us. 'Some of them, of their own admission, named regret and disappointment with what they're seeing now.' Could she introduce us to one? We were soon making the acquaintance, via Zoom, of Abdur Rahman, a 69-year-old retiree living in Woodside, Queens. Rahman, who immigrated from Bangladesh, agreed to talk to us via Zoom from CAAAV Voice's office in Astoria, with Akhtar and another organization member interpreting. Now a naturalized citizen, Rahman believes America should be first, and that leaders should take care of their constituents first. 'There isn't really peace in America, and we have to think about ourselves first before we think about anywhere else,' he said via interpreter. Trump's actions on immigration have been more extreme than Rahman had expected when he voted for him last year. He knew that the president would target undocumented immigrants for deportation and tighten the border, but he thought enforcement would be limited to criminals. But now many people who came here from other countries seeking asylum are being told to leave. 'They're not safe here and they're not safe there. So what are these people supposed to do?' Related : The administration's aggressive approach has made him question the future of the Republican Party, and this year he canvassed with CAAAV Voice for Mamdani. He liked what the candidate was saying about making things more affordable. Like Obeid and de la Cruz, he didn't cast a vote for Mamdani last month. Rahman has been a Republican since coming to the United States in 1991. Card-carrying, literally: From his pocket he produces a card with an eagle insignia and the logo of the Republican National Committee that reads 'LIFE MEMBER.' And yet he is in favor of Mamdani. A Republican backing a democratic socialist. How to square this circle? 'Populism is not an ideology, it's an emotion,' says Mario Nicoletto, campaigns committee chairman for the New York Young Republican Club. 'People are pissed off and they're upset about the status quo and how the elites have failed the younger generation — or I'd argue, all generations of the country.' 'What it underscores is that voters don't necessarily judge everything on a left-to-right axis all the time,' says Smith, the Democratic strategist. 'And that when we just view them as simple creatures like that, we're missing something important.' 'People are rejecting the old and just wanting something different and new, wanting a message that really resonates with them, that they see themselves in,' says Avilés, the council member from Brooklyn. It seems as if the Trump-Mamdani voter will exist come the general. But does such a person already exist? Someone who's already cast a ballot for both? She does, and she's in Brooklyn. People vote at a polling location at Louis D. Brandeis High School on the mayoral primary election day in the Manhattan. TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images Momena Begum is a 47-year-old naturalized citizen from Bangladesh who works in home health care. She's a Democrat, and back in 2020 she saw in Biden a politician who could end the chaos of the first Trump era and nurse the country back to stability. She wanted him to deliver on his promise to cancel student debt, something the Biden administration tried to do before meeting resistance in the courts. Then came the attack by Hamas on Israel, and Israel's bombardment of Gaza. Begum felt that Bangladeshis had a certain kinship with Palestinians. After over a year of fighting, she was fed up with Biden for not bringing an end to the war, so she, like many of her fellow Muslims, went for the alternative. The Muslim community voted for Trump to stop the war in Gaza, Begum said through an interpreter provided by DRUM Beats, a political group focused on working-class South Asian and Indo-Caribbean communities in New York. That's our only hope, she thought at the time. Begum is a member of DRUM Beats, which supported Mamdani, and she got to see him speak. The mayor of New York may not have the power to stop the war, but Begum liked that Mamdani supports the Palestinian community. And he promised to make some things better at home: child care for working mothers like her, free buses and a rent freeze. On the night of the primary, as Cuomo conceded, Mamdani thanked the Bangladeshi aunties for supporting his campaign. 'A different kind of Democrat,' Begum thought. And the Trump-Mamdani supporters are a different kind of constituent. Anjuman Ali contributed to this article.
Bloomberg
14-07-2025
- Politics
- Bloomberg
Epstein Conspiracies Split Trump, Musk and the MAGAsphere
The president is learning the consequences of courting outlandish theories. Save Trouble is brewing among the MAGAs. 'How many of you are satisfied with the results of the Epstein investigation?' Fox pundit Laura Ingraham asked attendees at a Friday summit of young conservatives sponsored by Turning Point USA, an influential far-right activist group close to the Trump administration. The answer, according to the Washington Post, was a crescendo of boos.
The Hill
07-07-2025
- Health
- The Hill
Trump's mega-bill will hurt the health of his own voters
Even a Trump critic has to agree that Medicaid does have problems with fraud and abuse. But the problem with Medicaid isn't due to people cheating or failing to fill out the paperwork to prove they qualify as the working poor. No, the problem is health care 'providers' gaming the system, overbilling and pocketing profit, knowing they'll rarely face real consequences. These corporate bad guys draining Medicaid are labeled by critics as the health care 'crime families.' But those cheats are avoiding penalties as President Trump targets middle-class and poor people who rely on Medicaid. And a lot of them are his own voters. Trump promised not to cut into their Medicaid benefits. He said this explicitly, pledging that 'we're not going to do anything with that, other than if we can find some abuse or waste … but the people won't be affected.' Yet under Trump-backed legislation there will be cuts to federal funding to help with the cost of doctor visits and nursing homes. That hurts the large segment of Trump voters who get medical attention thanks to Medicaid. But hold on. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), a fierce defender of GOP political interests as the former Senate Majority Leader and often a Trump critic, voted for the bill. 'I know a lot of us are hearing from people back home about Medicaid,' McConnell reportedly told his Senate GOP colleagues at a closed-door luncheon. 'But they'll get over it.' Get over it, senator? McConnell is not alone in his judgment that voters will look the other way, ignoring the withdrawal of medical treatment now provided by Medicaid. Vice President JD Vance said last week that cuts to Medicaid are 'immaterial.' Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) dismissed concern about Medicaid by telling a townhall that 'we're all going to die.' There is dissent among some Republicans aware that Trump built a working-class, populist base that includes a lot of people on Medicaid. Listen to Steve Bannon, the former Trump aide and far-right podcaster: 'A lot of MAGAs are on Medicaid. If you don't think so, you're dead wrong. You can't just take a meat axe to it.' The numbers indicate that Bannon is right. More than 20 million Republicans are on Medicaid. In recent focus groups with Trump voters in states such as Kentucky, Ohio and North Carolina, many said they never expected Trump to back such deep Medicaid cuts — and they're worried about what it means. Another famed Trump supporter, Elon Musk, is also making the point that Trump is harming his political base while failing to effectively cut government spending. 'Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame!' Musk wrote. 'And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this earth.' Polling by Fox News backs these GOP critics. A June poll found that 59 percent of voters oppose the Trump bill, and 45 percent of people who say they understand the bill said it will 'hurt' their family. As NPR reported last week, 'The Senate plan to slash Medicaid and ACA marketplace funding could lead to nearly 12 million more people without insurance by 2034 … That in turn would harm the finances of hospitals, nursing homes and community health centers, which would have to absorb more of the cost of treating uninsured people, and may force them to reduce services and employees, as well as close facilities.' The high number of Trump supporters who rely on rural hospitals and health centers will specifically feel the impact. As Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) noted, the bill will result in cuts to substance abuse treatment, which includes opioid and addiction care as well as combating fentanyl use. Those programs are funded by Medicaid. 'It's shameful,' said House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, warning 'people will die' and calling the bill an 'all-out Republican assault on health care.' He declared the House floor a 'crime scene' shortly before the GOP majority voted to pass it. That rhetoric is not fearmongering. Consider just a few problems already being pointed out by critics of Trump's bill. According to AIDS United, 40 percent of American adults living with HIV rely on Medicaid. A Brown University analysis finds that 579 U.S. nursing homes are now at high risk of closure. As the Kaiser Family Foundation reported, Medicaid pays for over 40 percent of births nationally and nearly half of births in rural areas. It is the largest payer of pregnancy-related services. Cuts will be especially devastating in states like Louisiana, Mississippi, New Mexico and Oklahoma. Halting abortion has been a mainstay of GOP policy, and now many babies and their mothers will suffer as a result of cuts passed by Republican lawmakers who built their careers as opponents of abortion. Abortion rights advocates are sure to make the case that Republicans who voted for these cuts may end up with more deaths on their hands than any abortion provider. So, will voters 'get over it' as McConnell suggests? We'll see. The first test comes in four months in gubernatorial elections in Virginia and New Jersey — where a combined 3.2 million people rely on Medicaid. Juan Williams is senior political analyst for Fox News Channel and a prize-winning civil rights historian. He is the author of the new book 'New Prize for These Eyes: The Rise of America's Second Civil Rights Movement.'
Yahoo
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Trump's latest grift leaves us with one question: What does a Trump fragrance smell like?
As if we needed a new absurdity to toss onto the ever-growing pile of products being peddled using the president's name, we now have a new line of President Trump's Official Fragrances. The announcement came Monday in the same way so many announcements from Trump do — via Truth Social. "Trump Fragrances are here. They're called 'Victory 45-47' because they're all about Winning, Strength, and Success — For men and women," the President of the United States wrote. "Get yourself a bottle, and don't forget to get one for your loved ones too. Enjoy, have fun, and keep winning!" The 3.3 fl oz bottle retails for $249 on the official website. The image suggests that each perfume/cologne bottle has an image of a man in a suit on top. It's unclear whether that's supposed to represent Trump himself or not, even though the physique certainly bears no resemblance to the man himself. The description further suggests that the fragrance is "inspired by President Trump's history win," with the perfume claiming to capture "confidence, beauty, and unstoppable determination" and the cologne blending "rich, masculine notes with a refined, lasting finish." In other words, we have no idea what the scents actually are. — (@) It's a good bet that the official site didn't bother describing the fragrances because the sort of people who would jump at the chance to drop $249+ on Trump-themed perfume or cologne are unlikely to actually care about anything beyond proving their MAGA loyalty anyway. But where there are gaps, others are more than happy to fill in the blanks, and it didn't take long for people on social media to start theorizing as to what these pricy fragrances actually smell like. Here are some of our favorites: — (@) From the man who's always full of shit! — (@) The idea that this scent is perfectly formulated to mask the "evil, rotting soul" underneath is 10/10, no notes. — (@) Don't sniff too much of it. — (@) You know, because the Commander-in-Chief has a tendency To Always Chicken Out. — (@) Specifically, the smell of the US Constitution set on fire. — (@) Do grifts even have a scent? Well, they do now! It's just too bad MAGAs still couldn't smell them, even right under their noses. This article originally appeared on Pride: Trump's latest grift leaves us with one question: What does a Trump fragrance smell like? This buff candle smells like 'the sexiest NFL player's jockstrap' and we're VERY interested Amandla Stenberg Stars in Dreamy New Stella McCartney Fragrance Film Gucci Enlists Elliot Page For His First-Ever Fragrance Campaign
