Donald Trump has touched down in 13 countries in the first ten months of his second term, a whirlwind world tour that far exceeds the pace of his first presidency and rivals Joe Biden's heavy international schedule.
Trump has already crisscrossed the globe with stops in Canada, Egypt, Israel, Italy, South Korea, Japan, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia and the United Kingdom.
He has also floated future trips to Gaza and Kazakhstan, suggested Australia is 'under serious consideration,' and after brokering a peace deal hopes to visit Armenia and Azerbaijan and Africa 'at some point'.
But the frenetic pace is rattling one key constituency: MAGA loyalists who would prefer their president wheels-down on US soil, not racking up international passport stamps.
Inside the West Wing, aides are quietly voicing concern. A White House staffer told the Daily Mail the administration has devoted 'an enormous amount of energy to solving the world's issues,' and those around Trump are urging him to 'bring it back home now'.
Critics warn that every day spent abroad risks further erosion of domestic approval, particularly on immigration, the economy and border security, where supporters expect a hands-on commander-in-chief.
Polling shows Trump's approval rating has plunged to one of its lowest points yet, with just 37 per cent of Americans giving him the thumbs-up.
A CNN/SSRS poll found 68 per cent of voters believe things in the country are going 'pretty or very badly,' while only 32 per cent say the US is doing 'very or fairly well'.
With the midterms less than a year away, the red flags are unmistakable: 41 per cent of Americans say a congressional vote today would serve as a protest against Trump.
Conservative firebrands Raheem Kassam and Mike Cernovich say the president must focus on kitchen-table priorities.
And Trump is taking heat from an unlikely source: former ally Marjorie Taylor Greene. Her public 'divorce' of Trump has become symbolic of a wider ideological rift in the GOP: 'MAGA' versus 'America First.'
'Affordability is a major issue in my district and so is health insurance,' Greene said last week. 'I'm America first… people really want their problems solved with their hard-earned tax dollars.'
Even the Vice-President has 'gently' signaled his discomfort. After GOP losses in New Jersey and Virginia, JD Vance has emphasized that affordability must come first, a positioning many see as groundwork for 2028 without openly breaking from Trump.
'Vance is already laying the foundation… telling the American public that he prioritizes issues that impact Americans first,' a White House insider told the Daily Mail.
Paul Dans, former chief of staff at the Office of Personnel Management, and current candidate for US Senate in South Carolina, is more blunt: there has been too much 'foreign galavanting' this term.
'The country is at its breaking point with endless wars and endless spending,' Dans said. 'Messaging from the White House… is hitting a serious sour note back home.'
Republican commentators agree. Kassam argued Trump's focus abroad 'ruined what could have been an electorally palatable night' in New York, New Jersey and California.
Cernovich and Breitbart's Matthew Boyle blamed excessive attention on the Middle East and Ukraine.
'Trump spent all year on the Middle East, his big donors loved this, the voters did not,' Cernovich wrote on X.
A West Wing staffer says Trump has heard the warnings and is pivoting to domestic issues. On social media, he recently touted a 'Golden Age' of investment, saying companies have poured trillions into US operations, creating hundreds of jobs for Americans.'
And on Monday, he hosts a 'McDonald's summit' to address affordability, part of what aides insist was 'already scheduled' programming.
Still, Trump has downplayed domestic frustration in interviews, insisting economic complaints are exaggerated and that he has been rebuilding the 'bad economy' he inherited from the last administration.
White House spokesman Kush Desai told the Daily Mail the President has been 'cleaning up Biden's inflation and economic disaster' and fulfilling a 'resounding mandate to implement America First foreign policy,' citing new trade deals, a NATO defense-spending pledge and the killing of narco-terrorists.
The White House said domestic travel will ramp up ahead of the midterms.
And there is context for the criticism: during Trump's first term, he made only four international trips in 2017 - a far slower pace - and over four years visited 25 countries in total.
By comparison, Biden made 21 international trips to 28 countries during his presidency, hampered early on by the pandemic.
Trump hitting 13 countries in less than a year now underscores just how dramatically he has accelerated his foreign itinerary, and why alarm bells are ringing among his base.
'A lot of the top brass… are always on the other side of the world,' Dans said. 'Why don't you stay back and execute some of America's agenda? There are only so many hours in a day.'
