Dem political guru James Carville says has declared Donald Trump’s presidency to have already collapsed – barely 80 days into the Republican leader’s historic return to the White House.
Carville, 80, steered Bill Clinton to the White House in 1992 with a campaign best remembered for his pithy motto: ‘It’s the economy, stupid.’
This time, Carville made the bombshell claim during an appearance on CNN telling host Michael Smerconish that he was surprised by just how quickly the Trump administration had in his view, fallen apart.
‘I had no idea. I thought I’d have to wait longer for the imminent collapse. It happened even faster than I could imagine,’ Carville said, with his trademark bayou drawl.
Carville has spent decades dissecting the highs and lows of American politics and seen plenty of erratic behavior from politicians.
But the ‘Ragin Cajun’s’ latest comments were rooted in his February New York Times op-ed, in which he advised Democrats to essentially play dead in to bide their time and allow the Trump administration to implode under the weight of its own dysfunction.
‘Sometimes the most powerful thing we can do is retreat on the immediate battlefield – and advance in another direction,’ he wrote.
‘It won’t take long. Public support for this administration will fall through the floorboard. It’s already happening.’
Veteran US political strategist James Carville says has declared Donald Trump’s presidency to have already collapsed – barely 80 days into the leader’s historic return to the White House
Trump’s public support appears to be at or above where it stood during his first term
Carville made the claim during an appearance on CNN telling host Michael Smerconish that he was surprised by just how quickly the Trump administration had fallen apart
That op-ed raised eyebrows for its tone and its total reliance on Trump’s self-destruction as a political strategy.
But now Carville insists that the collapse he forecasted has already arrived – even sooner than expected.
‘This is a glorious opportunity for the Democratic Party to redefine itself,’ he declared. ‘It’s the gravest crisis we’ve had in the United States in the last 80 years.’
Carville painted the Trump administration as a constitutional disaster zone, suggesting that America had veered off the rails of legality and leadership.
‘We’re looking at nincompoops and blockheads and buffoons running the country,’ he said.
Carville, who currently serves as senior advisor for the liberal Super PAC American Bridge 21st Century, has never been shy about his distaste for Trump.
Yet despite his insistence the administration is unraveling, the data tells a very different story with no evidence to support his sweeping claim that public support has ‘fallen through the floorboard.’
Trump’s public support appears to be at or above where it stood during his first term.
Political consultant James Carville is no longer inside the Democratic war room, but his influence remains outsized
A Gallup poll of US adults covering the first three months of 2025 found Trump’s approval rating at 45% – three points higher than during the same period in 2017.
And in a Fox News national poll conducted from March 14 to 17, Trump’s approval rating stood at 49%, with particularly strong numbers among independents and working-class voters.
Trump’s individual policy ideas are proving popular, too.
Nearly six in 10 Americans approve of Trump’s plan to deport illegal immigrants, 54 percent support his handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict and a majority are on board with Elon Musk taking a chainsaw to the federal bureaucracy and it’s out-of-control spending, according to a CBS News poll last month.
Carville, a staunch Democrat has been married to Republican strategist Mary Matalin, 71, for 32 years
Veteran strategist James Carville steered Bill Clinton to the White House with a campaign best remembered for his pithy motto: ‘It’s the economy, stupid’
It would not be the first time Carville has been spectacularly wrong.
In an op-ed published just weeks before the 2024 presidential election, Carville declared whom he thought would be the winning candidate.
In a column headlined ‘Three Reasons I’m Certain Kamala Harris Will Win,’ Carville became a laughingstock among political pundits.
‘America, it will all be OK. Ms. Harris will be elected the next President of the United States. Of this, I am certain,’ he wrote.
He cited three reasons for his certainty: Trump had lost before, Harris’s fundraising advantage and his own ’emotional’ feelings.
Of course, Vice President Kamala Harris lost in a landslide as Trump returned to power, winning key swing states and outperforming expectations among Latino, black, and union voters.
Carville’s latest pronouncements have failed to spark any movement within the Democratic Party, many of whose top strategists are now wary of such overconfidence following last year’s defeat.