within, it s more questions he has to find answers for. confusion and uncertainty in russia this morning after a failed revolt by the head of the wagner mercenary group. this was the most significant challenge to vladimir putin s authority in decades. we ll go over what exactly happened and what it could mean for putin s leadership as well as the ongoing war in ukraine. plus, despite mounting legal challenges, new polling shows donald trump expanding his lead in the 2024 republican primary. we re breaking down the new numbers straight ahead. and special counsel jack smith asks a federal judge to delay trump s upcoming classified documents trial. what we re learning about the possible new timing for that. good morning and welcome to way too early on this monday, june 26th. i m jonathan lemire. thanks for starting your day with us. we ll begin this morning with this weekend s developing news out of russia where the head of the mercenary wagner group launched the most
welcome back. house speaker kevin mccarthy says he supports the resolutions to expunge donald trump s impeachments. congresswoman elise stefanik and marjorie taylor greene introduced the measures last week. trump, of course, was impeached not once but twice during his time in office. the first was in 2019 over an attempt to shake down ukraine for political dirt on joe biden. trump was then impeached again in 2021 for his actions ahead of and on january 6th and the insurrection. mccarthy told nbc news that trump should never have been impeached, citing the durham report, which raised questions about the fbi s investigation into the trump campaign s ties with russia. take a listen. mr. speaker, on the proposal by mrs. greene and stefanik on
crucially joe biden despite some of the top numbers for him in the poll, he s doing well. he s getting about 50% of those somewhat who disapprove of him. those who disapprove of the job president biden s doing, they re breaking for him in the matchup. how does his 43% approval rating at this point in his term compare to other pat presidents running for re-election as they had in june in their penultimate term in office? unfortunately, he s not in a good position. he s doing about the same donald trump was in at this point heading into the election in 2020. donald trump ended up becoming a one-term president. we ve seen other presidents like
stupid and a complete waste of time. it s hard to imagine this going much beyond the headline or two here, but it does, to your point, show just the tightness still, the grip that trump has on this party. we looked at poll numbers a little earlier in the show. since the secon indictment, the federal indictment, his lead over desantis has only grown and popularity has goes up. desantis hasn t really popped. he peaked a little too early. then you have donald trump who the support is there. it never really faded that much to begin with. the fact that he is perceived as under attack by the deep state, it only serves to further strengthen him. we ve seen the numbers continue to go up. he gave a big speech at the faith and freedom coalition conference this weekend, and the grievance and martyrdom is a big part of that. that s always been a huge part of his political persona. at the same time, the polls
the republicans are in. trump, popularity goes up in the republican party, and yet there are all these clear warning signs how he s a flawed candidate in the jane real election. yeah. the warning signs, jonathan, are the 5% of voters who have either major or moderate concerns about that classified documents probe and the indictment against the former president. 77% of republican primary voters say, hey, i have no concerns at all or just minor concerns, but when you look at the overall electorate, it s 55% of the majority that do have concerns. as you mentioned, the biden versus trump matchup we have in our poll, we have the current president, joe biden, leading by four points. now, that four points is within the margin of error. it s a very close race. it also looks a whole lot like the general election we saw in 2020 when joe biden ended up winning the national popular vote by a little bit more than four percentage points but