Trump’s Set Up for a Brutal End of Year — Does the Media’s Growing Irrelevance Make Him Immune?

(Manuel Balce Ceneta/AP photo)

It is impossible to argue that President Donald Trump has been ineffective at implementing his Project 2025 plan in the first three quarters of his second term. Like it or not, he has used executive power with abandon, bent federal agencies to his will, and scored a few unexpected wins on the international stage. He even prevented a dangerous escalation between Israel and Iran by halting an Israeli retaliatory strike on an Islamic regime — something no modern American president has done. That’s no small thing.

But heading into the fall of 2025, Trump’s fourth quarter is shaping up to be far more perilous populist terrain. The politics of gravity are real. Honeymoons end. And the same instincts that allowed Trump to crash through Washington norms could now box him in. Yet the bigger story may not be Trump’s vulnerability at all. It’s whether the media — so dulled, distrusted, and predictable after a decade of Trump obsession — has any power left to hold him accountable.

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There are four fronts where Trump looks remarkably exposed.

The Economy. The delayed impact of tariffs is about to hit home. For months, critics warned of higher prices and disrupted supply chains. In May and June, those warnings felt premature — shelves weren’t empty, and growth was steady. But economic policy works on a lag. By October and November, the real effects are expected to land: consumer prices rising, businesses squeezed, layoffs rippling across the Midwest. When Marjorie Taylor Greene is sharing TikTok’s of Americans in tears because of economic struggles, you know things are bad. If inflation returns while wages stagnate, Trump will own it. Fair or not, presidents always do.

Foreign Policy. Trump once promised to use his dealmaker’s skill to end the war in Ukraine. Instead, the conflict has hardened into stalemate. Vladimir Putin has little incentive to bargain, and every month without progress makes Trump look more like a man being strung along than a statesman driving outcomes. Add to that his reliance on cozy ties with a handful of developing nations, and the image curdles: less America First, more America Isolated.

Militarized Cities. Arguably the most visible flashpoint has been Trump’s deployment of federal agents into American streets. Masked men detaining foreign students and undocumented residents has become normalized imagery. For some, this is strength. For others, it is dystopian. The Democrats foolishly fell into a trap by looking like they are opposed to safe streets, but there is a significant risk in not just the White House policy but in public perception: the longer the footage circulates, the more it fuels unease that Trump’s America is a permanent state of siege.

First-Year Fatigue. Perhaps the biggest reason why Trump’s popularity is soon to wane? It’s just how things work in the first year of a presidency. Let’s call it “the rhythms of public opinion,” which neatly follows the laws of physics. Every president eventually collides with fatigue. Americans grow tired of the same voices, the same boasts, the same slogans. The pendulum swings both ways. Barack Obama had his slump after getting elected. George W. Bush cratered. Bill Clinton was impeached. Trump’s volatility magnifies the risk: when the public mood turns, it often turns hard.

Put it together and Trump’s fourth quarter looks dangerous. And this doesn’t even include the smoldering dumpster fire that is the Jeffrey Epstein scandal None of this means collapse is guaranteed. The pro-Trump media ecosystem is vast, persuasive, and profitable. But the conditions for a downturn are in place.

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Here is where the press enters the picture. In theory, this should be a moment of consequence for journalism. A president heading into potential turbulence, policies about to bite, foreign entanglements unraveling — the raw material is there for accountability reporting at its best.

In practice, though, it may not matter. Because through a series of unforced errors and systemic changes in the political media ecosystem, the press has made itself predictable, and predictability is the enemy of relevance.

MSNBC has spent a decade warning of Trump as an existential threat. Even if they’re right, their “all caps” urgency has worn thin. Fox News, by contrast, has largely abandoned any pretense of holding Trump to account. That’s not analysis, that’s brand strategy. Which leaves the legacy networks — ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, NewsNation — the very outlets with the broadest reach and the power to shape the national conversation. But years of horse-race coverage, personality-driven feuds, and Capitol Hill cafeteria gossip have eroded trust.

Throw in a litigious Executive Branch that is willing to sic the FCC chair on any reports they deem unfit for air? That is the very definition of a chilling effect to protect an administration from negative coverage, even if it is fair and just.

So even if they accurately report on a bad fall for Trump, the impact may be muted. The coverage will wash over a public that tunes it out as more noise from outlets they no longer respect. In other words: Trump’s biggest shield may not be his own strength, but the press’s weakness.

That doesn’t mean the media is doomed to irrelevance. But it does mean the path back requires courage — not just in confronting Trump, but in confronting themselves.

How so? First, call balls and strikes. Credit Trump when he earns it. Keeping Israeli jets grounded after an Iranian missile launch was significant, even historic. If Trump makes American cities measurably safer, that deserves coverage too. Reflexive opposition is not reporting, it’s tribal signaling. The fastest way to rebuild credibility is to surprise audiences by being fair regardless to the capital letter next to a politician’s name.

Second, document the real economy. Instead of endless panel debates about “tariff politics,” put cameras in shuttered factories. Show families choosing between rent and groceries. Follow small business owners trying to survive the squeeze. Americans recognize their own struggles. They don’t recognize the Beltway chatter.

Third, get out of the cafeteria. Capitol Hill coverage has devolved into middle-school melodrama — who insulted whom, which anonymous source dropped gossip on which senator, which pollster whispered what. Very little of this of actually matters outside Washington. What matters is whether policy improves lives. That’s the beat.

Fourth, invest in narrative reporting. Not narrative as spin, but narrative as storytelling. When the public feels stories instead of just reading numbers, trust follows. Think less about scoring cable news soundbites, more about crafting dispatches that explain what’s at stake.

Finally, reporters should root for Americans to succeed, not gloat over Trump’s stumbles or sneer at low-information voters. That’s the only way to claw back trust as a fair referee of facts in today’s noisy, partisan media world.

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So yes, Trump’s fourth quarter could be disastrous. For the nation’s sake, I hope it’s not. I am rooting for a transcendent moment of harmonic convergence that will repair our divided nation. But I don’t expect that to happen. Economically, geopolitically, politically — the table is set for a rough season. But the true test is not whether Trump stumbles. The true test is whether the media notices in a way that matters.

Because if the economy sours, Ukraine festers, and militarized cities spark backlash, and yet the national narrative barely budges, that tells us something profound: the press has lost its place in the feedback loop of American democracy.

The tragedy isn’t just Trump’s possible immunity. The tragedy is the media’s irrelevance. And unless newsrooms start calling balls and strikes, trading gossip for ground truth, and documenting the country instead of themselves, they will remain spectators in a drama they were meant to referee.

Trump’s 2025 fourth quarter may be make-or-break for his presidency. For the media, it’s make-or-break for their relevance.

Asked another way, if Trump stumbles and no one believes the headlines, did it even happen?

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

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