Mark Mitchell: Trump Gains Support as Americans Demand a Brutal Return to Order

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Aired on January 12, 2026. Transcript begins below and may contain minor errors.

Polling Shows Americans Want Order, Not Excuses

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Mark Mitchell’s with us. Mark, you’ve been looking at a lot of different aspects of things that are going on since so much as every day there’s another, you know, another judge MacDady that changes the next day. President Trump, I don’t know, it’s kind of in a full flex. What is your, what is your analytics tell you about what you’re polling right now, about where the American people are on a range of topics, sir?

MARK MITCHELL (GUEST): Well, I want to acknowledge because a lot of people call me a black piller. And first, I would say, I don’t black pill. I give you the data. Everything that I say is backed up with data and I draw my conclusions, but I challenge you to make your own. And if Trump’s doing well, I’ll say he’s doing well. If he’s doing poorly, I’ll say hold it, hold on.

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Who, who, who, who accused you of being a black pill?

MARK MITCHELL (GUEST): I don’t want to call out names there, but I mean everybody on Twitter calls me that. And now there’s a war on MAGA black pillers, when in reality it’s like, okay, I got to the White House to help give the administration advice, and it looks like they’re taking some of that.

You know, I’ll tell you, for November and December, it really felt like the wheels were falling off, and Donald Trump’s net approval got down to negative 12. It’s still, I think, negative 9 or negative 8 today, but what is changing is the last couple of days have been absolutely incredible.

We’ve finally seen, in my opinion, a lot of aggressive actions, which is what Americans want out of Donald Trump. They want the system fixed.

And so if he can make sure, if he’s managing this circus, right, and he has one big main ring and there’s a couple of side rings, I would almost say that he could get away with whatever he wants in those side rings, as long as the main ring is the core fundamental root cause problems that Americans have right now.

And what are those root cause problems?

It’s decades of corporatism and uniparty kleptocracy and corporate welfare have hollowed out the middle class, and we need the American dream back.

And that’s going to be a long road to ho. It’s going to be a journey. America needs a golden path, not a golden age now.

And I think we’re starting to see that. And I think we’re starting to see aggressive actions.

I would love some more intent, a little bit more strategy and plan behind it.

But the fact that they’re going after these housing investors, pretty big deal. The fact that Scott Bessent’s coming out with like some pretty creative ways to shut down on like remittances and stuff like that, we’re starting to see some good stuff there.

And the other one is brutal government reform, which I would kind of give Trump sort of like a D minus or F plus at, because we just haven’t seen it. And the numbers are getting worse.

Donald Trump was elected because people trusted him more than the federal government. And if he’s not attacking the federal government, unfortunately, he’s wrong.

And so all of a sudden we see right direction has reclaimed low 40s. It’s a solid 42% today, I think. And so that’s good because we lost the 40% number.

And so I think America is fundamentally behind Trump, and the polling says it.

We had a poll from a week or two ago, and we asked America, has Trump delivered not enough or too much of what he promised?

Only 21% of America says too much. 38% say not enough.

And especially the younger voters, half of them say not enough.

And so what people want is kind of the stuff I think we’re seeing out of Trump now.

His numbers are getting better when he acts like a dictator. And that was kind of like what happened in February and March as well.

And so you look at these ICE protesters, you look at this ridiculous level of fraud. People hate this.

The Minnesota fraud, I mean, the numbers of fraud just keep getting higher and higher.

We’re up to 75% of Americans right now that are angry at the level of waste, fraud, and abuse in America. That’s even higher than it was when DOGE was threatening to, like, audit the Department of Defense and shut down the Fed.

And then do you agree or disagree with this statement.

The fraud reported it in Minnesota so far is just the tip of a very large iceberg of fraud involving federally funded programs nationwide.

61% to 26%. Huge numbers.

Like America’s, like, obviously, obviously these people are stealing generational wealth from us.

MARK MITCHELL (GUEST): Well, I was roasting Minnesota fraud, and I think this is the biggest opportunity that Trump has been given this year. And unfortunately, I hate to say it, but it looks like Republicans just don’t have a stiff enough upper lip to actually govern this country. Maybe we’ll get some good stuff in the reconciliation bills. I don’t know. They seem even incapable of talking about what their plans are for this year, and that’s horrifying.

Democrats are up for, I mean, I guess it could be worse. But Trump captured the zeitgeist of the youth. He was the most popular. His job approval rating was the highest when he was taking a chainsaw to the federal government. And unfortunately, for whatever reason, it would appear that Republicans sent DOGE packing out of D.C. on a rail.

Well, here we are again. America is being reminded that probably 10% of our annual federal expenditure is waste, fraud, and abuse, in a very, very visible, egregious way where Americans, I think, are demanding aggressive action.

And every one of the aggressive things that Trump has done that the press has, you know, clutched their pearls and clucked their tongues about is actually more popular than Trump is.

Arresting people for the auto pen, more popular than Trump is. Arresting people for, you know, blowing up narco boats, like that was more popular than Trump is. Literally everything, including even nabbing Maduro, is more popular than Trump is.

Fifty one percent approved of U.S. military action to capture Maduro. Only, what is that, forty one percent disapproved. Only twenty eight percent strongly disapproved.

And so here’s where I think it matters. This is not the same America ten years ago that kind of cared about the Constitution and all the finer details about entitlement reform and red versus blue policy. No. Again, these people think the system has failed. They want a brutal return to order, and they want people held accountable.

And so what Trump could do between now and November is just, like, surge these cities with everybody. Like, forget just ICE. People protest ICE. Are people going to protest the United States Marine Corps? Let’s, you know, use the Insurrection Act.

Or what about all those eighty-thousand-armed IRS troops that we never fired? Like, let’s get some people up there. Let’s do it in California. Let’s do it in New York. Let’s do it in New Jersey.

STEVE BANNON (HOST): And make it. What later? Okay, okay, hang on a second. Hang on a second.

David Hoke tells me they’re working on, they’re working on a huge, and it’s getting edited right now by the great young videographer. And it may be out tomorrow. But he’s telling me that in Minnesota, but they’ve only scratched the surface. They’re about to come out with, I mean, systemic fraud of a scale that you can’t believe.

Is that just going to throw more gasoline on this fire, where President Trump will have support to go in with the medevac and do this, and also to not just federalize the National Guard, but maybe even send the Army in if you have to have mad?

Because I keep saying they’re fighting. These fights are all about mass deportations. The mass deportations have to come. They have to come.

Do you think the American people, as you read the data, will they have his back in this, particularly as they see that the Somalian thing is ten times bigger than people think it is today, and it is throughout the country? And not just with the Somalians, but the entire business model of the radical Democrats, the Marxist jihadist, is based upon having the federal government taxpayers actually pay for this?

MARK MITCHELL (GUEST): I mean, what has been dangerous for Trump’s numbers is counter signaling his movement and not understanding why he got elected, getting involved in doing things for other people and not the American people, and not doing enough of what he promised.

And so all of these things that he’s done already that our polling has said were popular. Like, for instance, sending the National Guard to cities, that was really popular. In fact, more popular than Trump was. None of this stuff has hurt his numbers at all.

And so I think where we’re at is that I think people are voting and supporting politicians basically because of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. I think they’re worried about food, sustenance, shelter. Sustenance, shelter. We’re not talking about self actualization right now.

And Americans fundamentally care most about fairness. We’ve measured that so many different ways. Like ninety percent think it’s important to prevent cheating in elections. Ninety five percent think it’s important we don’t have a two tiered system of justice.

And so if your core principle is fairness, accountability, reform, and a return to order, you know, be smart about it, obviously. And people don’t like the masks, and people don’t like the theatrics out of ICE. Obviously, some of that stuff has gone a little bit too far.

But it’s like, why aren’t we beating up the businesses? People would be there for that. They don’t want to hear about business stability. They’re beyond that. They can’t afford a future in America, and all the economic metrics continue to say that.

Yeah, it’s like if people are protesting again, I don’t think they’re going to be protesting the FBI, protesting the troops that we would surge. But we’ve got to understand where we’re at.

Thirty percent trust the federal government. Before the election, now everybody looks at the government and basically assumes, it’s been validated multiple times now, that there was just a generational level of fraud and abuse.

Over 70% of Americans assume that most elected representatives gain from their positions of power. The level of overwhelming people. And we got rid of.

They’re angry at the level of waste, fraud, and abuse. Overwhelmingly, people wanted the swamp drained, like sixty nine percent. They want audits of the major programs.

And we got rid of Doge. And Doge could have ushered in a new generation of youth voting for Republicans, and Republicans really didn’t kind of care about that.

But again, now Trump, in my opinion, like, remember, we had almost sixty percent of America agreeing with Trump that he who saves his country violates no laws.

And so I think that this is the opportunity of a lifetime for Trump and Republicans. It’s like basically go after this criminal cartel of Democrats.

And if you, like, I haven’t asked these questions. I’m assured it would be overwhelmingly popular. Let’s get RICO cases. Let’s, like, roll up Antifa.

Like, why, like, finally we’re hearing about investigations into George Soros, but people think this country was stolen. They want it back.

STEVE BANNON (HOST): Republicans don’t have the stones for this because they were the Washington generals to the radical Democrats, Harlem Globetrotters, that allowed this all to happen.

They’re still financed. This budget that you have today, you’re still financed. It’s still financed. It’s a complete joke.

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