In this week’s live recording of the Strength in Numbers podcast, G. Elliott Morris and David Nir, publisher of The Downballot, dig into a news-packed week — from the Supreme Court’s oral arguments in the birthright citizenship case and Donald Trump’s televised address about the war in Iran on Wednesday to the firing of Attorney General Pam Bondi and the first anniversary of Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs on Thursday. Elliott and David also run through Trump’s cratering approval ratings on inflation and the end of the government shutdown.
Here are the big takeaways:
Trump’s war in Iran is deeply unpopular — and getting more so. Strength In Numbers’ polling shows 72% of Americans oppose sending U.S. ground troops to Iran, including a majority of Republicans. On top of that, Trump’s approval rating on his handling of prices and inflation has cratered to a new low of minus 33, a slide that tracks almost perfectly with a 35% spike in gas prices since the war began. According to YouGov, Trump is now doing worse on prices than Biden was at the equivalent point in his presidency — a remarkably bad position for a president who campaigned on lowering the cost of groceries on day one.
Trump gets record-low numbers on trade on the anniversary of his “Liberation Day” tariff announcement. One year after Trump’s sweeping tariff announcement, his approval on trade and tariffs has matched an all-time low at minus 20. The promised benefits — manufacturing job growth, lower income taxes, a revitalized industrial economy — never materialized. Instead, the U.S. has lost roughly 100,000 manufacturing jobs over the past year, consumers are seeing excess inflation in goods, and grocery prices have risen, due in part to Trump’s mass deportation of agricultural workers. When asked about a direct trade-off in polling, Americans chose lower prices over more manufacturing jobs by a 54-33 margin.
Trump took a beating at the Supreme Court... The birthright citizenship oral arguments went badly for Trump’s solicitor general on Wednesday. Legal commentators are predicting a lopsided loss for the administration, and polling shows wide majorities of Americans in favor of birthright citizenship — which wasn’t the case just a couple of decades ago.
…and in the shutdown fight. On the shutdown, Democrats emerged with a clear win: Republicans caved and announced a deal to pass virtually the same TSA-funding bill many had angrily rejected a week earlier, with no additional money for ICE or Customs and Border Patrol. Elliott’s flash Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll found 52% of Americans blame the Trump administration and congressional Republicans for airport chaos, versus just 25% who blamed Democrats.
If you missed our video livestream, you can watch it by clicking play on the web version of this post at gelliottmorris.com. We record the podcast live every Thursday at 2:00 PM Eastern. We always discuss a few pre-planned topics and then answer questions submitted live by viewers.
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