On Tuesday's edition of The Alex Jones Show, Alex Jones told his audience it was time to abandon Donald Trump. "When your ankles swell up three times the size they were before, that means heart failure," Jones said. "And he does look sick. And he does babble and, you know, sound like the brain's not doing too hot. And so we just cut bait on Trump, and we just mobilize against the Democrats." He then added: "He's gone. And that's it."
The remarks were reported by Mediaite, Newsweek, NJ.com, and Raw Story. The Alex Jones Show is broadcast on the Infowars network. Jones, 52, was one of the earliest and most prominent figures in right-wing media to support Trump's 2016 campaign and remained a vocal defender through much of his first term.
What Jones Said, Exactly
Jones' comments on Tuesday, April 1, 2026, covered several overlapping arguments. He invoked his own father's dementia as a frame for describing what he claimed was Trump's cognitive decline. He cited swelling in Trump's ankles — a condition the White House disclosed in July 2025 as chronic venous insufficiency, not heart failure — and claimed Trump's inner circle was "freaked out."
"All the people rallied around him, you can see, [Pete] Hegseth's freaked out. You can see, the press secretary's freaked out," Jones said, according to Mediaite's transcript. "They're being loyal. They think it's a lesser of two evils."
Jones explicitly framed his call to abandon Trump in electoral terms. With the November 2026 midterms approaching, he argued that Republican congressional candidates should distance themselves from the president. "We need to say, 'We're the original populist Tea Party Republicans that got Trump in. Just because he's been betraying us, we're not,'" he told listeners, per Mediaite.
He also cited the Iran war directly, calling Trump's statements about targeting Iranian water supplies a war crime: "Blowing up Iranian water supplies, he's talking about. War crime, any way you cut it."
The White House Response
White House spokesperson Davis Ingle responded to Newsweek with the following on-record statement: "This is a complete bulls*** story that's being desperately told to boost podcast views. The truth is that President Trump is the sharpest and most accessible President in American history who is working nonstop to solve problems and deliver on his promises, and he remains in excellent health."
The White House has consistently pushed back on questions about Trump's health since his second term began. An annual physical published in April 2025 found Trump in "excellent health, exhibiting robust cardiac, pulmonary, neurological, and general physical function," and stated he was "fully fit to execute the duties of the Commander-in-Chief." Trump himself, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal published January 1, 2026, attributed visible bruising on his hands to a daily aspirin regimen and minor injuries from public engagements.
The Poll Numbers Jones Cited Are Real
Jones cited a University of Massachusetts Amherst poll showing Trump's approval rating at 33%. That poll is real, and its findings are striking.
The UMass Amherst Poll, a national survey of 1,000 respondents conducted March 20–25, 2026, found Trump's approval at 33% — with 62% of respondents somewhat or strongly disapproving of his job performance. The university released the topline results and crosstabs publicly at umass.edu/poll.
Tatishe Nteta, provost professor of political science at UMass Amherst and director of the poll, said in the university's press release: "In the midst of skyrocketing prices, significant declines in the stock market, an unpopular war in the Middle East, a government shutdown that has led to lines at airports and nationwide protests against his presidency, it is no shock that President Donald Trump's approval ratings have taken a hit."
The same release noted specific demographic collapses in Trump's support. Among men, working-class Americans, and African Americans, approval had dropped by close to 20 percentage points since April 2025. Among independents, approval fell 13 points. Among moderates, it fell 18 points.
Jesse Rhodes, professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the poll, said: "Fully 62% of Americans somewhat or strongly disapprove of Trump's job performance. The reason? Americans grade Trump harshly on the most prominent issues facing the country, especially on bread-and-butter economic issues. Seventy-one percent say Trump is not handling inflation well and 61% say he's not handling the issue of jobs well."
USA Today, which covered the poll on March 30, noted that the 33% figure was the lowest approval rating of Trump's second term — and 11 points below his April 2025 number of 44%.
Jones Is Not Alone on the MAGA Fringe
Jones' break is the most dramatic yet, but it is part of a pattern. Since the start of the Iran war, multiple figures in the populist-right media ecosystem have voiced varying degrees of skepticism about the military campaign. Jones has previously criticized Trump over the Epstein documents, Trump's attacks on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), and the aging president's physical condition.
What is new about Tuesday's comments is their operational specificity: Jones is not just criticizing a policy. He is explicitly calling on Republican congressional candidates to run against Trump's record and frame themselves as post-Trump populists. That is a strategic argument aimed directly at the November 2026 elections, seven months away.
Whether that argument finds traction is a separate question. Republican elected officials have remained almost universally publicly supportive of Trump and the Iran war, and the party establishment has shown no inclination to distance itself from the White House. But the right-wing media ecosystem that helped build Trump's political coalition is visibly fracturing under the weight of the war, the economy, and mounting questions about the president's health.
Context: Trump's Health Record
Jones' health claims mix documented facts with speculation. The documented facts: the White House confirmed in July 2025 that Trump had been evaluated for leg swelling and received a diagnosis of chronic venous insufficiency. Trump's hands have been visibly bruised in public appearances, which the White House and Trump himself attributed to aspirin use and handshaking. The April 2025 White House physical found no cardiac, pulmonary, or neurological impairment.
Jones' assertion that swollen ankles indicate heart failure is his own medical interpretation, not a diagnosis from a named physician or official source. That claim is not independently verifiable from public records.
The political significance of Tuesday's broadcast is not medical — it is electoral. Jones is telling the MAGA base that Trump is a liability heading into the midterms. Whether or not his health claims are accurate, the approval numbers he cited are real. At 33%, Trump is approaching the floor that has historically signaled a president's party facing serious losses in a midterm election.