Tamara Keith and Amy Walter talk about Trump’s low approval ratings

Jeff Bennett:

A new poll shows what Americans think of President Trump and his policies, and it’s not good news for the White House.

For more, let’s go to the Monday policy duo. This is Amy Walter from The Cook Policy Report with NPR’s Amy Walter and Tamara Keith.

Always great to see you both.

So, Amy, the latest poll from PBS News, NPR and Marist shows that a majority of Americans disapprove of the job President Trump is doing, with a majority strongly disapproving.

How important is the intensity of that opposition at this point in his term?

Amy Walter, Cook Political Report:

Yeah, well, we also took this new poll from PBS and ran it — and put it into the Cook Policy Report’s poll tracker, which is an aggregator of 21 national polls.

And what we found this week is that the president is actually at the lowest point of his second term at this point. And he’s really driven by some of the key voters who have soured on him since he was first sworn in, Latino voters, young voters, independent voters. All of these things were crucial to his success in 2024.

But the group that’s most interesting to me, and I think will be really important as we watch the next few months going forward, are the voters that we always consider to be his core constituencies, the white, working-class voters who have so strongly supported the president for a long time.

We’re seeing some significant declines there, both in the PBS poll and in The Cook Policy Report aggregator. These are the type of voters for whom you could argue the decline was actually driven by views about the economy, frustration about inflation and the cost of living.

And when you look at the battleground states that will determine the makeup of the House, especially the Senate, they go through places where white, working-class voters make up a significant portion of the electorate.

Jeff Bennett:

And, Tam, say more about that, because President Trump expanded his coalition in 2024, but a lot of that expansion seems to be fading away now. Of course, we don’t know how long this will last.

Tamara Keith, NPR:

right.

Jeff Bennett:

But it’s a snapshot in time.

Tamara Keith:

right.

The intensity of this rejection has returned to where it was after the January 6 attack. So there it is – a riot. This is very dramatic and challenging for him. As you say, he expanded the base. He did not win because of Al Qaeda. He won because of all these other people, independent voters, young voters, Hispanic voters, as Amy talks about.

Aboard Air Force One over the weekend, we journalists asked him a lot of questions at one point. He said something about his base that I think is really special. He is very focused on his base. And with his base, the narrow base, the titanium piece of pie that he’s had from the beginning, he still has power.

And what he’s saying is, “My base has never been stronger. My base is me.” And then let’s put an ellipsis to get to the end of what he said. “You could call it America’s First Base. They couldn’t be more thrilled.”

This is who he plays for. That’s the same reason he lost this other type of expansionist voter that he got. And these are — the independent voters, these kind of expansionist voters, these are the people who will decide the majorities in the House and the Senate.

Jeff Bennett:

Looks like the president is trying to talk some support into existence?

Amy Walter:

Well, that’s true. This is correct.

Jeff Bennett:

This plays a role in the piece I wrote about messaging.

Amy Walter:

Yes, and again, if he starts losing, he’s no worse off with the Republicans. But his support among white, working-class voters has certainly shrunk. A difference of approximately nine points from the beginning of last year.

Once again, the economy is the biggest driver of this. The president likes to say that the economy is booming, everything is fine, inflation is tamed, it’s a hoax, that’s the thing he’s been hearing about in the press.

But if you’re a Republican on the ballot next year, you can’t afford for this to be a message that affordability isn’t a big deal. She wants to talk about what she did as a Republican to help tame that. Now, what Republicans are hoping is that over the next few months here, when people file their taxes, they’ll get some refunds.

There are studies that show that Americans will receive larger refunds this year than they did in 2025. Will they remember that come November? That’s a really big question mark about that.

And voters will feel — and this is the other frustration they’re feeling right now — that the president is rightly focused on affordability, rather than on a whole bunch of other things that don’t seem to have much of an impact on bringing down the cost of things in their lives?

Jeff Bennett:

Yes, so the president is losing support in his handling of the economy. He’s also losing support for issues like posting racist memes on his social media accounts attacking the Obama family.

I bring this up because you mentioned that you were on Air Force One.

Tamara Keith:

Yes.

Jeff Bennett:

After the program stopped broadcasting on Friday, the president admitted that he was the one who posted this program on the Internet after the White House initially denied any wrongdoing and then blamed a staff member. Fill in the blanks.

Tamara Keith:

Yes, that’s how the White House described this false anger. The anger wasn’t fake. There were many Republicans who came to the president and said: This is bad, you have to remove it.

The fact that they removed it is an admission of something they never admit, which is that something is wrong. This was a mistake. Now, President Trump, his response was, yes, I saw the beginning of the video, but I didn’t see the end, and in fact, he thought he was just spreading what, based on his viewing, is an election denial conspiracy theory from the 2020 election.

But this is what he said he wanted to publish. What he actually posted is that it has some sort of racist meme embedded in it. However, he told his employees to put it out, he said. He also said, there is no reason to apologise. In response to me, he said: No, he was not expelling anyone. He said he did nothing wrong.

In fact, he has said he is the least racist president we have seen in a long time, which is a big claim.

Jeff Bennett:

This wouldn’t be the first time the White House has sought to clean up something for a president and then backed away from the cleanup task…

Amy Walter:

right. right.

Jeff Bennett:

…Which answers this question, if the White House comes up with messages, how good are those messages if the president can’t stick to them?

Amy Walter:

right. And there’s — they need him to stay on message, but they also need him to be at the forefront to keep the base motivated.

Jeff Bennett:

Amy Walter, Tamara Keith, always a pleasure.

Tamara Keith:

Thanks.

Amy Walter:

Thank you.