Even among Trump allies, voices of warning are rising. On Wednesday, FOX Business senior correspondent Charles Gasparino, a conservative who’s no stranger to feuding with MAGA over coverage, issued a sharp caution to the Trump White House. He pointed to a Newsweek report with the headline “Trump’s Approval Rating Underwater in Every Swing State for First Time,” noting that this development should be deeply unsettling given Trump’s recent diplomatic wins and domestic pledges.
Gasparino isn’t sugarcoating it, saying “That has got to be scary for the White House,” he wrote, “given the president’s recent foreign policy success, successes to end wokeness, and change the country in a better direction.” In other words, even in a moment where Trump is fighting on several fronts, the mood among swing voters is shifting.
So why the slide? Gasparino makes a cold, technocratic case: the economy. He writes, “I suspect the reason for his low approvals is the economy. It doesn’t suck, but it’s still not good enough to make up for the lack of purchasing power lost during the Biden years.”
He calls out a controversial policy that many MAGA hard-liners cheered, tariffs. According to Gasparino, these new levies are effectively a tax on Middle America, bending undercutting wage gains and burdening everyday consumers. “One reason has to be higher tariffs; they are a tax increase falling primarily on Middle America,” he argues. He goes on to say these costs aren’t being compensated for yet by productivity gains from AI, deregulation or further tax cuts.
Gasparino didn’t stop at tariffs, he pointed to signs of instability: gold prices surging (a traditional inflation hedge), confusion over the dollar, and interest rate headwinds. He warned that while the stock market might look hopeful, it’s largely stigmatized by “cheap money” policy, a boon for investors but of little help to those in grocery lines. “Stocks are addicted to cheap money,” he wrote.
The broader warning is political: midterms are notoriously brutal for the party in power, and even leaders with impressive foreign policy showings can bleed on domestic fronts. “Lots of mixed economic signals on top of the reality that midterms are always difficult for the party in power,” Gasparino added.
What’s striking about Gasparino’s comments is that they come from the right flank. He’s not a liberal critic, he’s a commentator who typically supports Trump and conservative goals. For him to publicly nod to a polling slump and highlight tariffs as a key drag is a signal that even allied media recognizes trouble ahead.
Inside the White House, strategists will no doubt parse every swing state shift, every purchasing power measure, and every Wall Street uptick. The push will be to reframe the narrative, spin the foreign policy gains, promise fiscal relief, and hope the messaging resets. But for now, the tone coming from one of Trump’s own media ecosystem is a holler.
The White House can choose to react to the polling. Either way, the warning lights are flashing loud enough that ignoring them would be riskier than responding.
