Shea’s Buffalo Theatre Kicks Off Centennial Celebration

With the war with Iran spiraling and public opinion about the military excursion at an all-time low, a leading scholar on tyranny warned on Tuesday that Donald Trump’s people may do the unthinkable.

Late Monday, Fox News host Laura Ingraham warned the president that “the clock is ticking” as supporters lose patience with the war that has been unpopular since the U.S. attacked in late February.

According to historian Timothy Snyder, whose book "On Tyranny" is often cited when discussing the Trump administration, a false flag terror attack in the U.S. that can be blamed on Iran is not beyond the realm of possibilities as the president's approval numbers slide.

On X he wrote, “Trump is pursuing this war in the HOPE that Iran carries out an act of terror in the US. And even if it doesn’t, which I doubt it will, consider the possibility that Trump's people would fake one. Please consider this essay, written back in March, as well as the last few lessons of ‘On Tyranny.’”

In the March essay he linked to, he predicted, "A purpose of the war on Iran might well be to provoke a terrorist attack inside the United States. This would provide Donald Trump with a pretext to try to cancel or 'federalize' the coming Congressional elections.“

"Self-terrorism might not have been the initial aim; but as time goes by, and failures and atrocities mount, its appeal will grow. Trump could think that he has much to gain; the war itself makes terrorism more likely; there are plausible vectors of terror; and the United States has let down its defenses," he added.

As for the timing, he elaborated, “We know that he is obsessed with the fall elections, which his party will almost certainly lose by spectacular margins, and that he fears the accordant loss of power. This is clear from his own statements and actions.”

President Donald Trump's "fix is in" rhetoric could compel his biggest fans to skip voting, a new analysis contends.

Miles Taylor, chief of staff in the Department of Homeland Security during the president's first term, argued Thursday that Trump's constant pushing on the SAVE America Act is fundamentally flawed.

That's terrible news for GOP candidates on the November ballot who are already looking at an uphill battle, Taylor said.

Trump's approval ratings have collapsed to disastrous levels, recent reports show.

A recent poll shows just 30 percent of Americans approve of his performance—catastrophic territory achievable only when millions of your own supporters have abandoned you. Most damaging: his economic approval ratings hit their worst marks of either his term.

With that in mind, Taylor argued Trump was making a big mistake.

"The real headline is that the president is sabotaging his own side’s turnout in the very act of seeking to meddle in the election," he wrote. "It’s like a burglary that’s backfiring in real time. Trump is trying mightily to break into democracy’s back door but making such a racket with his crowbar that he’s woken up the whole neighborhood."

Pointing to Trump's infamous 2024 claim he would fix elections "so good, you're not gonna have to vote," Taylor argued the president's boast will boost complacency when he should be pushing for his MAGA fans to get off the couch.

Meanwhile, Trump has motivated Democrats.

"Every lever he pulls to 'tilt' the playing field risks convincing his own voters they don’t need to show up at all," he wrote before predicting, "Again, each of these election-rigging maneuvers tells the MAGA base: relax, the fix is in! Unfortunately for the Republican Party, the data shows its voters are getting the message. They’re becoming more indifferent."

He then quipped, "The president wanted to mount the biggest midterm election operation in modern history. Well, congratulations, Mr. President. You did it. Your 'get out the vote' operation is massive. The only catch is that it’s inspiring the opposition, not your own team."

Faced with the possibility that the Republican Party is headed for a wipeout in the November midterms, White House insiders are attempting to head off a Friday announcement by President Donald Trump of new tariffs.

Trump is preparing to impose what the Financial Times is calling a "barrage" of fresh tariffs on dozens of countries this week, but his own advisers are urgently counseling him to step back from the brink, the outlet's report states. Senior officials worry that resurrecting his trade war—which delivered economic shocks and voter backlash in his first term—could prove "catastrophic" heading into elections Republicans are already struggling to win.

According to the report, "Behind the scenes, senior officials have been counseling the president to maintain stability with trading partners and honor the deals that Washington struck with them to reduce their tariffs in 2025, according to two people familiar with the matter.”

The timing is particularly fraught. Existing 10 percent tariffs adopted after a Supreme Court decision in February struck others down are set to expire Friday and some in the White House are engineering probes "of forced labor practices, allowing Trump to avoid using the emergency authorities knocked down by the Supreme Court."

The prospect of renewed tariffs collides with an already-deteriorating economic landscape. The escalating Iran conflict has roiled energy markets, pushing gas prices back above $4 per gallon. Voters are already furious about the cost of living and recent polling found two-thirds of Americans disapprove of how Trump is managing affordability.

Adding tariff hikes to soaring energy prices risks "inflaming voter frustration over the high cost of living," a sign that even Trump's own team recognizes the political danger, the report notes.

"This does not mean that tariff hikes are in the rear-view mirror," Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade official now at the Asia Society Policy Institute, told the Financial Times. "But it does suggest that a more cautious approach is now called for, particularly in the lead up to the midterm elections."