The Narativ | Know Sooner
Wednesday, September 23, 2026
Trump fell to 29 percent approval, five points above the 24 that finished Richard Nixon. Reuters/Ipsos has him at 32, a career low. The Senate map shows the fall: Roy Cooper leads by 8.8 points in North Carolina, Josh Turek leads Ashley Hinson by eight in Iowa, James Talarico is ahead of Ken Paxton in Texas, and Democrats lead in Ohio, Maine and Alaska. Six Republican seats, six Democrats ahead — enough to flip the Senate 53 to 47. Stephen Miller blamed Senate leader John Thune for a loss that has not happened yet. Trump sounded resigned at the UN Tuesday: Iran, he said, is "waiting to see how I do on the midterm election." So he waits too, and hunts fraud instead of voters — the Justice Department claims 160 arrests of noncitizen voters and promises "aggressive actions" before the vote. Nixon's party told him to go. If Trump's party does the same, Democrats owe him no deal: the full force of the law, the courts and the Constitution against Trump and his associates.
Emmanuel Macron used his last UN speech Tuesday to call Trump's "so-called peace in Gaza" a spectacle that should "shame us all." Jordan's King Abdullah called Gaza and the West Bank "two fronts of the same Israeli strategy" and named what Israel is doing on both: "forced displacement. And that is a war crime." Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Gaza "the most inhuman and shameful concentration camp of our time." Heads of state did not talk about Israel this way a year ago. Netanyahu speaks Thursday, five weeks before Israel votes, with Trump stepping out of his way.
Volodymyr Zelensky asked Trump on Tuesday to bring him and Putin together in one meeting to end the war. "I'm ready any time," he said. Putin refused. His spokesman said Wednesday that Putin will meet Trump alone. The same morning Russia sent 161 drones at Kyiv and killed two people. Putin wants Trump without Ukraine in the room. That is not someone who wants to stop a war.
Trump promised to "own" Greenland. On Tuesday he signed for two new bases at Narsarsuaq and Mestersvig and a bigger Pituffik, on land that stays Danish. Mette Frederiksen said the deal "recognises the sovereignty" of her kingdom. Every base sits inside NATO's Arctic plans, facing Russia and China. Trump took the only win the UN offered him.
Trump meets Xi Jinping on the tarmac at Andrews today, red carpet out, the welcome he gave Putin in Alaska. The rest of the world spent UN week moving the other way. Trump's friends are Xi and Putin.
Trump spent UN week behaving like a president who expects to lose in November. His alliances lie with Xi and Putin, and the rest of the world moved the other way at the UN this week. Kings and UN investigators now say "war crime" out loud — Abdullah about Israel's forced displacement of Palestinians across Gaza and the West Bank, a UN fact-finding panel about two American strikes in Iran. Thomas Massie, a Republican, filed impeachment articles against Pete Hegseth on 15 September over one of them, a school in Minab. Nixon's party told him to go at 24 percent. Trump sits at 29 and falling. Whoever comes after him is a question for November, and Democrats should answer it with no giving in and no deals: the full force of the law, the courts and the Constitution against Trump and his associates. Watch who visits the Oval Office in November, and what they carry in.
FiveStack — 3 PM ET, with Dean Blundell.
Narativ Live — 7 PM ET. The AI Council, the panel we launched last week, meets again: China, and a preview of tomorrow's Trump–Xi summit. Is China ready to lead the world, and is the United States under Trump simply letting it?
