U.S. President Donald Trump, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine leave following a press conference in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 6, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
President Donald Trump appears to be "cornered" by his own mortality as the cracks in his coalition deepen, according to one expert.
David Rothkopf, the former editor of Foreign Policy Magazine, discussed Trump's continued efforts to find a way out of the war in Iran on Monday's new episode of "The Daily Beast Podcast" with host Joanna Coles. Rothkopf noted that Trump's old tricks of getting someone to bail him out, charming others, or bulls------- don't appear to be working. That is happening at a time when several MAGA figures like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), Sens. Thom Tillis (R-NC) and John Thune (R-SD) seem to have realized that the political winds are blowing away from Trump, Rothkopf noted.
"He's cornered, and nothing he's doing is working," Rothkopf said. "All his old tricks ... He doesn't know what to do. And on top of it all, he's dying. He is old. He is infirm. He disappears for three days at a time. He doesn't have what he used to."
Rothkopf added that Trump's inability to pass some of his signature policies through Congress, such as the SAVE Act, is an example of his waning power.
"These are cracks," Rothkopf added. "Each one of these are cracks at what you might call not the glass ceiling, but the MAGA floor.
And the more cracks, the sooner it is that he falls through the bottom."