NEW POLLS: Tariffs Tanked Trump’s Approval

Summary

Bulwark Takes: Analyzing Trump’s Approval Decline Amid Tariff Announcements

Episode: NEW POLLS: Tariffs Tanked Trump’s Approval
Release Date: April 10, 2025
Hosts: JVL and Sam Stein

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1. Introduction

In this episode of Bulwark Takes, hosts JVL and Sam Stein delve into the latest polling data indicating a significant decline in former President Donald Trump’s approval ratings. The discussion centers around the impact of recently announced tariffs, economic perceptions, and shifting voter demographics.

2. Decline in Trump’s Approval Ratings

The episode opens with alarming statistics highlighting the sharp decline in Trump’s approval:

• JVL states, “Trump's net approval down 7.3 points in a week following the announcement of the tariffs. His approval has a new low. 44.9% disapproval is a new high.” [00:31]

• Sam Stein concurs, noting, “Not good, is it? You want line go up, not line go down, right?” [00:51]

These figures underscore a troubling trend for Trump, with Morning Consult reporting his approval at 46%, marking the lowest point of his second term.

3. Economic Impact and Market Reactions

The hosts explore the broader economic implications of the tariffs and market responses:

• JVL highlights the media's focus on economic news, “Voters, 31% more likely to hear negative economic news than positive of economic news. The worst gap since May of 2023.” [03:08]

• Sam Stein discusses the bond markets, suggesting that the perceived chaos stemming from tariffs affects voter sentiment: “These numbers are about what I would expect... the anticipation of the tariffs and the sense that things were chaotic and out of control.” [01:54]

The conversation touches on Nate Silver’s analysis, where JVL mentions, “Nate thinks that Trump's bottom has not yet been explored because he has not been President during a time of economic disruption that didn't have an exogenous cause.” [01:16], indicating that the full impact on Trump’s approval might still unfold.

4. Shifts in Voter Demographics

A significant portion of the discussion centers on changing voter behaviors, particularly among Republicans and youth:

• Sam Stein observes, “This suggests to me this is like the siren for Trump that your own people are now willing to concede that things aren't necessarily going in the right direction economically.” [04:23]

• The decline in support among young voters is starkly noted by JVL, who states, “Before this, Trump was plus 5 favorability net with young voters... now they're at minus 29.” [05:17]

This dramatic shift indicates a loss of enthusiasm among younger demographics, which has traditionally been less predictable and more volatile.

5. Comparison Between Republican and Democratic Responses

The hosts engage in a philosophical debate about party loyalty and criticism:

• JVL questions, “Why is it that Republicans... are never disappointed and are willing to say anything, and Democrats are like the opposite?” [14:43]

• Sam Stein responds by analyzing internal dynamics within the Democratic Party, suggesting that, unlike Republicans, Democrats are more prone to internal criticism and demands for ideological purity: “The real divide in Democratic Party is over people who believe that incremental progress is important and people who are Puritans and who will never accept incremental progress.” [15:29]

This comparison sheds light on the differing mechanisms of party cohesion and dissent between the two major political parties.

6. Implications for Trump’s Political Future

The discussion moves toward the potential trajectory of Trump’s approval ratings and political viability:

• JVL asks, “So, real talk, how low do you think his approval could go?” [11:17]

• Sam Stein speculates that Trump’s approval could drop into the low 30s, referencing historical precedents: “I would imagine that we were talking low 30s at that juncture... that's lowest of low.” [12:35]

The hosts consider scenarios where economic downturns could either further erode Trump’s support or potentially rally his base if conditions worsen significantly.

7. Concluding Insights

In their final analysis, JVL and Sam Stein reflect on the broader implications of the current political climate:

• Sam Stein remarks on the surfacing of predicted chaos and corruption: “What's happened now is everything that we predicted in terms of the chaos and the uncertainty and honestly, the corruption is coming up to the surface, and people are like, oh, yeah, this is not great.” [13:07]

• JVL emphasizes the challenges Trump faces in rectifying economic perceptions: “The problem that Trump has right now is that he's broken the world financial system and he can't put it back together.” [10:01]

These insights suggest that Trump’s current challenges are deeply rooted in both economic factors and shifting voter expectations.

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8. Final Thoughts

The episode concludes with the hosts acknowledging the complexity of the political landscape, emphasizing that Trump’s declining approval is influenced by multiple intertwined factors, including economic policies, market reactions, and evolving voter demographics. The conversation underscores the precarious position Trump finds himself in, navigating through economic uncertainties and a changing political environment.

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Notable Quotes:

• JVL [00:31]: “Trump's net approval down 7.3 points in a week following the announcement of the tariffs. His approval has a new low. 44.9% disapproval is a new high.”

• Sam Stein [04:23]: “This suggests... your own people are now willing to concede that things aren't necessarily going in the right direction economically.”

• JVL [05:17]: “Before this, Trump was plus 5 favorability net with young voters... now they're at minus 29.”

• Sam Stein [15:29]: “The real divide in Democratic Party is over people who believe that incremental progress is important and people who are Puritans and who will never accept incremental progress.”

• JVL [10:01]: “The problem that Trump has right now is that he's broken the world financial system and he can't put it back together.”

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This comprehensive analysis by Bulwark Takes provides listeners with a nuanced understanding of the current state of Trump’s approval ratings, the economic factors at play, and the broader implications for the Republican Party and upcoming elections.

Transcript

[JVL]

Hello, everyone. I'm JVL here with my bulwark colleague, Sam Stein. And the polls are out for Trump. Liberation Day is sad.

[Sam Stein]

Kind of a bust.

[JVL]

Sam, I want to read some numbers to you because nothing makes good video like reading numbers.

[Sam Stein]

I thought, first of all, bond markets, you said don't make good video this morning. I think they make good videos.

[JVL]

That's it. I'm playing the hits.

[Sam Stein]

Playing the hits.

[JVL]

Trump's net approval down 7.3 points in a week following the announcement of the tariffs. His approval has a new low. 44.9% disapproval is a new high. Morning consult has his approval at 46, which is the lowest point of his second term. We'll keep going on, but very quickly. Not good, is it? You want. You want line go up, not line go down, right?

[Sam Stein]

Yeah, not good. I kind of wondering. We know where the bottom is, right? Or at least I think we know.

[JVL]

Where the bottom do we.

[Sam Stein]

Is right? Well, that's, that's.

[JVL]

Nate Silver wrote a piece about this. We'd actually.

[Sam Stein]

What did Nate say? What does Nate think?

[JVL]

Nate thinks that Trump's bottom has not yet been explored because he has not been President. Trump during a time of economic disruption that didn't have an exogenous cause.

[Sam Stein]

Oh, so I get it. Covid does not count.

[JVL]

Covid doesn't count because it wasn't his fault somehow.

[Sam Stein]

What does an exogenous cause mean? Is like, was the stock market crash in 08 an exogenous cause? I don't know.

[JVL]

So I think it just means recession. So, you know, exogenous is something like. Like Covid. Right. It comes in. You can blame it and say, yeah, that. Right. But just a normal recession. We don't know.

[Sam Stein]

Wouldn't Trump get blamed for Covid? I mean, for the. Just not for Covid, but for the magnitude of COVID Nobody did.

[JVL]

People still don't. To this day.

[Sam Stein]

People still don't.

[JVL]

All right, let's take a sidetracked by that.

[Sam Stein]

So Nate says we don't know things are going. Yeah, right. Well, I guess that's right. These numbers, it's interesting. These numbers are about what I would expect. And I've been. Trump's been kind of treading decently in the sort of 48, 47 range. But the tariff stuff, and let's keep in mind the tariffs didn't hit right. Like, that's the thing about this. We don't actually, we never actually lived with the impacts of the tariffs. What we lived with was the anticipation of the tariffs and the sense that Things were chaotic and out of control. And so that's just a perception of chaos. And so I guess I'm talking myself into Nate's thesis, which is, let's say in theory, that the tariffs hit and they're supposedly hitting. Right. We were in a trade war with China, basically. And that the price of goods does start creeping back up. Yeah. I think these could get worse, but at this juncture, they're pretty bleak. Historically, there's only been one presidency that's been, at this point, this bad, and that's Trump's first presidency.

[JVL]

Let me hit you with some more data. Sure. Voters, 31% more likely to hear negative economic news than positive of economic news.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[JVL]

The worst gap since May of 2023. Which is funny, because in May of 2023, things were okay. But that's all right. That's all right. That suggests that we are getting a new cycle that kind of is bad for Trump.

[Sam Stein]

Well, what it suggests to me. Well, what's a suggest to me is that. And we're always sort of looking for slippage among Republicans. Right. I mean, that's always what Trump is like. That base is so firm. And one of the reasons that his economic numbers early on were good early on in the second term were good is because there was obviously a quick reversal of sentiment. Right. Conservatives, MAGA types who thought the economy is horrible under Joe Biden suddenly felt fairly good about the economy. And then the reverse. This suggests to me this is like the. The sort of siren for Trump is that your own people are now willing to concede that things aren't necessarily going in the right direction economically. They may not yet be willing to blame you for it or say you're doing a poor job because of it, but they're at least willing to recognize some reality in which you're not a hero figure. And that is a problem for Trump.

[JVL]

Yeah. And I mean, let's be honest, he's going to have to put a lot more brown people into El Salvador and Gulags in order to make it up to these people.

[Sam Stein]

Well, they love him on immigration still. They do. I mean, his approval on immigration is always really.

[JVL]

So many of them, they just voted for him for the racism, not for the tariffs.

[Sam Stein]

They voted for him for the racism. They voted for him for. Not the tariffs. Yeah. No, they. They assumed he'd bring down prices, in fact. So they voted for him for the deflation.

[JVL]

Yeah. That's great, because voters are so, so sophisticated. Here's one more thing. The youth vote.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[JVL]

Before this, Trump was plus 5 favorability net with young voters, which I feel find both astonishing. And also, once you think about it for five seconds, it makes perfect sense because at this point, we are a decade into the Trump experience.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[JVL]

So if you're a young voter, there is no before times for you anymore.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[JVL]

Like, Trump is just. This is, this is politics. This is the Republican Party. This is all you've ever known. So this is so funny. Right.

[Sam Stein]

I was thinking about this the other day, about the Obama era in like, you know, 2014 or whatever, and how inconsequential those fights seem in. But at the time, of course, it seemed deeply consequential. And people who were, what, let's say they were 10 years old in 2012, you know, they're just now in their mid-20s. Like, all they know is Trump, like in their formative political years. And so as a sort of political matter, this, this circus that they've been in seems like the baseline. And so, yeah, so that's how they've.

[JVL]

Gotten to plus five. But they're now at minus 29.

[Sam Stein]

Right. Well, is it so bad?

[JVL]

Yeah. Wow.

[Sam Stein]

Okay, so what do you, what do.

[JVL]

You make of that to minus 29?

[Sam Stein]

Oh, what's theory?

[JVL]

I was gonna ask you because, I mean, young, young people are normally not terribly responsive to stock market news because they have less, less capital. Right. Less stuff accumulated.

[Sam Stein]

So that's too recent.

[JVL]

Yeah, maybe it is. Like the Nintendo. Like the Nintendo Switch too. I don't know if you know this, Sam.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[JVL]

But it has been pushed back in America because, you know, it's going to be a very big deal because of tariffs. Nintendo's now got to figure out what to do about Nintendo went and inked an entire deal with the Dodgers. I don't know if you noticed this. The Dodgers patch all season long, their, their sponsorship. Pat. Nintendo Switch to. Okay, maybe it's that. Maybe it's crypto. I don't. I am. Honestly, I am absolutely.

[Sam Stein]

It's confusing. It's confusing. Crypto could be an interesting reason. It's. I don't. I. As much as I want to think it might be the stuff that they're doing, cracking down on campuses, I don't. I honestly don't.

[JVL]

No, I don't think so.

[Sam Stein]

I don't think he's not doing that kind of like, you know, exhaustive push in, in. In the, in the podcast zone where he was trying to appeal to these people on a regular basis. So maybe it's a little bit of that, that they're not Hearing from him. But honestly, this one is, this one.

[JVL]

You think like, could it be the stories of like, hold on, you're just. You arrested this guy in Maryland who's got a.

[Sam Stein]

Well, that's a campus thing too. Right. It's like, it's like throwing, you know, they, they look and they see this college kid who's like, you know, walking through the streets of Boston and come up and they're like, that's kind of up. You know, maybe, I mean Rogan, Rogan was upset over that. Right? Rogan was upset and he talked about it and he said this is messed up. And Portnoy who is a, you know, is a voice for them, is upset over the crypto stuff and the self dealing and so maybe there's a bit of both of that. The question I guess obviously is like, are these, are these young voters gonna, you know, go to the Democrats? Because that kind of would matter. Are they just, you know, getting out of politics writ large?

[JVL]

It does matter. Democrats need the youth vote. The youth vote.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[JVL]

Part of what? Saved by part of what?

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[JVL]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't know. I, it is hard for me to see how Trump gets the young voters back though. That's the other thing I see. I think that. Right.

[Sam Stein]

I mean not by purchasing Greenland or a military parade, I don't.

[JVL]

Right. Trump's plus five was basically just like people who are acclimated to Trumpism thinking, well he's president again so you know, maybe at least the economy will be good. Right?

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[JVL]

And that's not in the offing. That's not coming through that door.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[JVL]

As you would know if you watched our segment on the bond market.

[Sam Stein]

That's it. That's why the youth vote fled. Is the bond market.

[JVL]

The bond market. Yeah. The youth vote is looking at the.

[Sam Stein]

10 year yields are out of control.

[JVL]

I gotta get on the, you know, corporate bond rate downgrading is really concerning them. The sacks 2 billion dollar bond which is gone to triple C. Very, very worrisome to the 18 to 24 year old voter say.

[Sam Stein]

Okay, to take your, to take your point a little bit further. Let's say you happen to be, you know, in the White House in their political office right now. What would you tell them to, to arrest this slide right now?

[JVL]

I mean more trans stuff, right? Fine. Find some trans even somewhere that you can demonize. I mean honestly, I, I don't know.

[Sam Stein]

Fox News does it, right?

[JVL]

This is.

[Sam Stein]

Things are going bad with tariffs. They found some trans fencer out in England who like they could demonize him. They know what's going on.

[JVL]

This is this. The problem that Trump has right now is that he's broken the world financial system and he can't put it back together. Like, you can go back on tariffs, you cannot fix the bond market, you cannot fix people's assumption that America is a risky place to put capital and that it is, it is risky to make plans in the near term to spend money on your business here, like, by expanding.

[Sam Stein]

And I think that's the sort of macro theory that I have, which is, and I know it sounds silly, but I think to your point, one thing Trump did miraculously well in the 2024 campaign was to convince the populace, or a portion of it, that in fact, things were relatively stable and prosperous during his presidency and that the real chaos had happened under Joe Biden. And I think all of us obviously said, that's preposterous. It wasn't that long ago. We know what happened. But enough people convinced, and I think what's happened now is everything that we predicted in terms of the chaos and the uncertainty and honestly, the corruption is coming up to the surface, and people are like, oh, yeah, this is not great. And it's not, that's not something you fix if you're the White House, because that's, that's a feature, it's not a bug.

[JVL]

So, real talk, how low do you think his approval could go?

[Sam Stein]

Well, I started thinking it was going to. He had a base of 42. Right. Which is kind of where he was maybe in the worst of times, 39, something like that.

[JVL]

Biden got to 38. Right.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah. And that was my sort of lived experience in Trump 1.0 is like, things were happening and yet it never really could get. But you've kind of talked me into the Nate Silver idea, like, if we're in a fairly serious recession, because this, and, and I will say, like, putting covet aside, because obviously covet. April, May of 2020 was bad and businesses were shuttering, but then there was a fairly steady reversal of that, and that did continue through. But let's say in theory that this does, you know, there's a recession and it lasts for, you know, half a year, and we're just, like, really struggling and businesses are, you know, shuttering and, you know, people just don't have work and we have just mass unemployment. Yeah, I, I, I mean, I would imagine that we were talking low 30s at that juncture. Right. I mean, what was like, what was the, the Bush low was like, around there in.

[JVL]

Yeah, I think bush hit, like, 36.

[Sam Stein]

Yeah.

[JVL]

I will say that if we get to that point, the same people who.

[Sam Stein]

That's like, that's lowest of low. That's lowest of low. I mean, I just don't think.

[JVL]

Yeah, I think that's right. I think that's right, because there's a certain segment of the population which, if you hit lowest low, will rally to him. Just to the libs. Right, exactly. But the same people who spent the last 24 hours talking about how brilliant it was to slap these tariffs on and then kind of sort of take them off will tell us that the recession is really just all part of the art of the deal and, like.

[Sam Stein]

You know, the degrowth.

[JVL]

Well, we'll come out of this thing, and, you know, once we come out of it, then you'll see how genius it was that he, you know, he's just. He's playing.

[Sam Stein]

And that's always the case. And I was talking. This is totally off topic, but, like, Will Sommer and I were talking for his piece, which is like. And I asked Will, like, don't these people ever get tired of, like, you know, when Dan Bongino comes in and he's gonna arrest Oprah and then he doesn't, or when the Epstein files are gonna come out and they do, and there's nothing in them, don't they ever just get tired of being misled or lied to? And Will's point is like, no, they just assume that the person who they put in place was the wrong person, and they'll find another Dan Bondino, they'll find another Pam Bondi, and they'll just continue to lie to themselves.

[JVL]

Let me ask you something. This is a. This is a big. This is an expansive philosophical and theological question.

[Sam Stein]

All right?

[JVL]

Why is it that Republicans, I think more constitutionally, but specifically with Trump, are never disappointed and are, you know, willing to say anything, and Democrats are like the opposite. It's like, boy, that Obama presidency didn't get us all the things we wanted. Boy, this. This Democratic politician disappointed me on these 15 different things. You know, the Biden student loan thing, that was not, you know, we wanted more than that. Yeah, it's. There's. There are always Democrats, often with their names attached to it in the press, like, complaining about, you know, I'm gonna leave the party. And, you know, I'm not pleased with Democratic presidential person X. And Republicans, like, we will line up to each over and over and over again, and we don't care.

[Sam Stein]

You know, it is a remarkable thing. I've I've, I mean my, my background is reporting on Democratic politics. That's sort of how I came up. And you know, the real, the real divide in Democratic Party is over people who believe that incremental progress is important and people who are Puritans and who will never accept incremental progress. And sometimes the stars line and you're willing to take half loaf. And this is, you know, the story of Obamacare is that. The story of the Inflation Reduction act is that. But oftentimes they just shoot themselves in the foot and they demand purity. And, and two major presidential elections are told through that prison, which is 2016 and obviously 2024. I don't see it with Republicans. And I wish I understood why.

[JVL]

I just don't, you know, at the, at the commentator level. And I promise we'll get out of here after this. Matt Iglesias I think, I think this is his, his term. It talks about the hack gap between Democrats and Republicans. And this is something which I think didn't exist during the Clinton years. Like, during the Clinton years you would have Democratic, you know, talking heads who would just defend anything. Like they line it up, right? They would, they would say anything. And that really went away, I think during the Bush years, into the Obama years. And yeah, like they were still partisans. But you, you could have a Democratic talking head on a cable show who would say, yeah, this thing Obama did isn't great. I think this was a mistake and he should have done xyz.

[Sam Stein]

Right.

[JVL]

And what we've had, in fact, beyond.

[Sam Stein]

That, they get credibility. If they felt like they get credibility within their own social circles by criticizing their own leadership.

[JVL]

Like Donna Brazile could, could show up on television and basically shoot straight. Joe Trippy can show up on TV and basically shoot. And there isn't a Democratic version of Scott Jennings, you know, like the Baghdad Bob. And Republicans are basically all Baghdad Bob at this point. And I wonder what that. Is that just an artifact of Trumpism? Is it a bit of Trumpism?

[Sam Stein]

I guess I think, I think it's a Trumpism product because it's all about sort of a team sport. Right. I think part of it for Democrats is cyclical, which is, you know, in 2020, in, in 2019, in 2020, you know, the whole mindset was like everything has to be about beating Trump. And so they were less willing to accept the type of self criticism, which is why you had, you know, in very little talk, frankly about Joe Biden and his infirmities because no one wanted to talk about that. They wanted to get rid of Trump, I would argue predates me a little bit. But Clinton probably was about that had been three terms of Republican presidencies. The party was just ready to, like get a Democrat in office. And so when Paula Jones came out, like there was a bit of a rallying around the flag type phenomenon there. But when you're not in that moment, the Democratic commentariat is much more willing, frankly, to just be hypercritical of Democrats.

[JVL]

Just be honest with what they think.

[Sam Stein]

Oh, yeah, that's the other thing.

[JVL]

Right. They're willing to be candid in ways.

[Sam Stein]

Right. Like David Axelrod, Van Jones, because you mentioned Scott Jennings. I'll talk about CNN commentators. I mean, those are two very prominent Democratic commentators on CNN who you probably will remember the most for when they put their spotlight on Democrats. When Van Jones is saying something critical of Democrats, when David Oxford is saying something critical of Joe Biden. And that you do not expect that ever and rarely do you ever get it from pro Trump commentator.

[JVL]

All right, well, hell, that was a journey, Sam.

[Sam Stein]

It was, but good one.

[JVL]

This is really, it was a good journey. All right, guys, hit like, hit. Subscribe. Get with us on the feed. We're here doing this all day, every day for only another decade, probably well into Trump's fifth term. We will be doing this here at the Bulwark. Good luck, America.