Alcatraz, Sith lords and movie tariffs: Trump’s ravings get louder as his approval rating goes lower

President Donald Trump made a series of increasingly erratic posts throughout his weekend at his Palm Beach estate. The first one came late Friday evening when he posted an AI image of himself as the Pope after he had previously joked that he would like to replace the late Pope Francis.

Then on Sunday, Trump threatened to impose 100 percent tariffs on foreign films, supposedly to save the American film industry and address an unexpected “security threat.”

“This is a concerted effort by other Nations and, therefore, a National Security threat. It is, in addition to everything else, messaging and propaganda,” Trump said on Truth Social.

Lastly, late in the evening, Trump entertained the idea of re-opening Alcatraz, the notorious former prison on an island off the coast of San Francisco, which closed in 1963 – largely because it was too expensive to operate, according to the Bureau of Prisons.

“When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be,” he said on Truth Social. Alcatraz is now a national park managed by the National Park Service and would likely be preserved by the National Historic Preservation Act.

It later emerged that a local TV station in Florida, where Trump was at the time, had broadcast the Clint Eastwood movie Escape From Alcatraz, shortly before the president’s statement about the famous prison.

As if that weren’t enough, the official White House X account commemorated May 4th, Star Wars Day, with an image of Trump with a lightsaber, though, tellingly with a red blade, the color of the villainous Sith lords.

This came the same weekend that Trump had a largely disastrous interview with Meet The Press’s Kristen Welker, wherein he said he did not know if he had to uphold the US Constitution as his administration conducts its mass deportation strategy.

In the same interview, Trump repeated his threat to annex Greenland through military force. He also brushed off fears about a recession ignited by his trade war with China.

“Anything can happen. But I think we're going to have the greatest economy in the history of our country. I think we're going have the greatest economic boom in history,” he said.

This came despite the fact that many economic indicators show warning signs of a recession. Last week, the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas showed that 58.9 percent of Texas business executives said that the tariffs would have a negative effect on business.

By contrast, only 5.5 percent of them said that in response to tariffs, they would relocate their business to the United States, compared to 54.7 percent who said they would pass the cost onto consumers.

All of this comes as Trump’s approval rating has taken a significant nosedive amid his global trade war. A CNN/SSRS poll showed he had a 41 percent approval rating after his first 100 days, while a poll from The Washington Post and ABC News showed he had a 39 percent approval rating.

Overall, Trump has the worst showing for a president after the first 100 days at least since the end of the Second World War.

For his part, Vice President JD Vance defended the president during an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier amid the negative numbers.

“I’m a firm believer that in the modern era, 2025, opinion pollsters don’t know how to capture most Americans,” Vance said on Fox, saying that many pollsters showed that Kamala Harris, Vance’s predecessor in the job, would beat Trump in November.

Trump has taken it a step further, even saying that pollsters should “be investigated for election fraud.”

“They are Negative Criminals who apologize to their subscribers and readers after I WIN ELECTIONS BIG, much bigger than their polls showed I would win, loose a lot of credibility, and then go on cheating and lying for the next cycle, only worse,” he said.

It is true that many pollsters missed Trump’s strength during election years. But polls during election years and general approval ratings are quite different.

In fact, with Trump off the ballot, Republicans might find themselves in a worse spot in the 2026 midterms. On Monday, Georgia’s popular Republican Gov. Brian Kemp announced that he would not run against Democratic incumbent Senator Jon Ossoff, likely knowing the environment would be tough should Kemp want to eventually run for president in the future.

Trump’s increasingly erratic behavior and posts are not a distraction. As anyone who has covered him knows, they are often the point. But at a certain moment, they show that Trump sees fewer options to win over persuadable voters and will instead seek to appeal to his most faithful.