← Bulwark Takes
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Tim Miller
Hey, everybody, it's Tim Miller from the Bulwark. We have a new poll out from Washington Post, ABC News and Ipsos that shows Donald Trump with the worst favorable ratings of any president in the last 80 years, historically unpopular for a president and his first 100 days, you know, a little bit cold comfort, I know for many of you and for us here reporting on this, since we told everybody he'd be a disaster and for some reason that didn't sink in for some voters. And I think it's also a little bit of cold comfort because we've been through this with the polls during the campaign. Polls go up, polls go down. The polls did undershoot Trump a little bit across the board, basically, in the 2024 election, not by a ton, not by more than the margin of error, but by enough to get a bad result. But I think that is why you gotta look at these polls in this context, which is even if they're undershooting them, you know, even if they're undershooting him by, I don't know, what do we want to give them? We want to grade them on a curve. What kind of curve do you want to give old Donnie? Old Donnie T. If you gave him a curve of five points, that I'd give him a 44% approval. That put him above the first Trump, that put him above himself. So that'd be good, but that wouldn't be enough to pass anybody. You've got to give him a 9% curve to get him up above old Gerald Ford, who had a 47% approval rating about the first time days of his presidency. So, you know, it's not good no matter how you look at it. And I do think that when you look at the numbers underneath, they tell you a lot about what is really driving this, and it is the economy. And I don't think that should be a surprise to anybody. But some pretty striking numbers here. The economy since Trump took office, 21% better, 53% worse, 25% same. You know, that is what 78% of people saying, that it's either the same for them or worse. That's not great, Bob. Prices for things you want or need going up 62%. Same, 27% going down 11%. So it's almost 90%. Pretty much everybody, likelihood of Trump's policies causing a recession, 72% say likely. So, I mean, that includes a significant number of people who still approve of Donald Trump. So, you know, voters are confounding. This is one of those times where I look to JVL's mindset about maybe some of the voters should be, I don't know, not part of the healthy democratic process. I'm just kidding. We want all the voters to be part of the democratic process. But it's not great when you get 72% saying he's going to cause a recession and about 40% supporting him. There's a delta there that's pretty concerning his views on the issues. You know, the thing that jumps out most is immigration at 46% approve is his highest, but he's still underwater. This poll had the sending undocumented immigrants who are suspected of being members of a criminal group to el Salvador at 47%. I think that's why it's also important context when looking at these polls. There was a poll earlier this week that showed much, much worse numbers. This was the New York Times Siena College poll that had the case involving Kilmar abrego Garcia At 31% support, 52% disapprove. So this is one of those situations where it's important to think about the wording. Like the way that they describe the case is going to impact the wording quite a bit. But you know, either way, you have the opposed numbers more than the support, even in the more generous ABC poll. So I think that's pretty notable when you look at immigration. Some of the worst polling initiatives for Trump is reducing federal funding for medical research. That's at only 21% support. Government's involvement in Harvard. That's only at 28% support. They don't mention Harvard, but they say in how private universities operate, ending birthright citizenship. 31%. All of this goes back to this whole thing that I've been banging the drum about for a while. This distraction conversation like, oh, we can't talk about anything that's a distraction. You don't want to mention Harvard or Greenland or, or the Venezuelans were sending to a Gulag because, you know, that is how Trump distracts you from this core issue of prices. You know, and Democrats and, and opponents of Trump should really just be talking about kitchen table issues and prices all the time. And it's just like, no, actually, no. People are already noticing that their prices aren't going down. Having some random congressperson talking about the fact that prices aren't going down is not going to influence them any more than actually showing up to the grocery store. I do think Democrats should talk about this. I'm not saying they don't talk about it, but this idea that you'll be Able to Jedi mind trick people into thinking the economy is worse than it is or realizing the economy is bad. People are going to realize the economy is bad because the fucking economy is getting bad. Because you're already seeing companies start to do layoffs. You're already seeing people start to shop less and save more money. You're already seeing prices on Chinese goods, you know, cheap goods. People were buying off of sheen. Or is it sheen or shine? I don't know. Either way off of shine. Those are starting to go up, right? So people are going to experience that. And so Democrats should talk about it and remind people and rub Trump's face in it. But these other issues that sometimes people say are distractions. Harvard, Kilmar, Brego, Garcia, et cetera, birthright citizenship. Those are polling pretty poorly. And his numbers are going the wrong direction. Here's one that kind of surprised me. Cutting back environmental regulations on oil and gas drilling, that's not something that a lot of people are talking about right now. That's happening. 37% support, 61% opposed. Like on a lot of these other issues, you know, the more people know about them, the less they're happy with what is happening with the Trump administration. So, you know, as far as handling it about right, there's another kind of section where they ask on the issues whether people think he's handling certain issues well or not. The only one that's even close to a majority is. Well, that's not true. There are two deporting undocumented immigrants, as 34% say about right. 48% say going too far. But if you lump handling it about right with not going far enough. Jesus. The true sicko. 16% of the country thinks we're not deporting enough people yet. That's 50. So you got about 50 versus who think he's doing it right or should do more, vs 48 who think he's going too far. So small majority there, very small. And then on the issue of ending DEI practices, you've got the highest number, 35% say he's handling it about right. If you lump those in with the real sickos that I guess want total only white men in charge of everything. 13% of the country that wants Trump to go even further to make sure there's absolutely no women or black people in the government. Add those two groups together, you get 48% with 51% think he's going too far. So, you know, it's just ugly all across the board. It's historically ugly. And the question is how ugly does it need to get before you start to see a change in behavior? Right. Because that number does exist. And this is something that Sarah Longwell talks about a lot that I do agree with, that the polls kind of don't matter because we're three months in and he's going to be here for three and a half more years. But they do matter in the sense that eventually, if it gets bad enough, there'll be a check in his behavior. And I always just go back to the George W. Bush example. People are like, what's the difference between the Bush and Trump? And it's like Republican voters started to get mad at George W. Bush over Iraq, over the economy, over. Not really over Katrina, but it was kind of lumped in to all of that over the Harriet Myers pick. Republican voters were mad at him. And so his numbers got so bad that people were free and felt able within the Republican Party to distance. And it was kind of obligated for some to distance from him. Eventually that could happen. Here the numbers are not. We're not there yet. But if the numbers keep going this direction, the economy keeps getting worse. That is what you're going to see. And I think that is why the polls matter. There's a lot of reasons to not obsess over the polls, but they do matter in the way that they might impact other people's actions, whether they be the law firms and the corporate America that was folding to Trump for no good reason for the first three months, whether it means Republicans on the Hill, candidates running for office, et cetera. So that will be something to watch. In the meantime, nothing wrong with pointing and laughing at Donald Trump for being the least popular president in history at the 100 day mark. All right, everybody, we will be back here soon. Subscribe to the feed. You know, we're always giving you the good shit. We'll be seeing you soon. Peace.