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Unknown A
Welcome to the show, everybody. On probably on Monday, we are going to be looking into an unavoidably obvious trend that is happening, which is that more Americans are leaving the country and at a faster rate than we have seen in a really long time. And the reason for this is not some vague, amorphous or unknowable reason. It's because of Donald Trump and it's because of record low support already for what Donald Trump is doing and the reality that's hitting home for many Americans about what a fiasco this is and is going to continue being. Now, we've all heard, oh, I'm moving to Canada if X. Very few people do it, especially because it's hard to move to Canada. But that doesn't mean you can't go anywhere. And many Americans can, and we're going to talk about that. But underlying that is new polling which finds that Americans really do not approve of the job that Trump is doing and, and they really don't like the initiatives that he is focusing in on so far.
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Unknown A
So we're going to link to the poll and you can look through it in detail. But some of the highlights, first and foremost, Trump approval, currently 47%. This is below the February approval for any other presidency for which we have data other than Trump's own first presidency. You might recall that in February of the first year of Trump's first term, he had an approval of 44%. Trump's approval now in February of the first year of his second term is 47%. That's the worst out of anybody since we've had this data other than Trump himself, who had an even slightly lower approval in 2017. If we look at demographic shifts, it's a disaster. Among 18 to 34 year olds, Trump is down from 57 in January to 41 in one month. 16% of 18 to 34 year olds have said, I used to support what Trump was doing.
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Unknown A
I no longer do. Hispanic adults, 50% approval in January, 41% now. Black adults, 30% approval in January, now down to 23. So just about every demographic group declining in approval of Trump, record low numbers. Now, what are the reasons, the reasons for the skepticism about what Trump has been up to so far responsible for this decline in approval are widespread, number one, when it comes to high prices. And this is, this is so important because one of the questions we've been asking is, are voters going to hold Trump accountable and blame Trump when, if and when? Probably when, if and when things don't go as Trump predicted, 62% of Americans say Trump has not done enough to reduce prices. Forget about enough to reduce. Prices are sky high. Egg prices are higher than they've ever been. Gas prices are up. Grocery prices are up. Okay.
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Unknown A
62% say he's not doing enough. Shockingly, even 47% of Republicans believe that Donald Trump is not doing enough when it comes to lowering prices, which he promised to do. Zoom out a little bit. What about more broadly when it comes to democracy? 52% of Americans say Trump is going too far in his use of presidential power. 52%. That's more than half. You don't get to 52% just with left wingers and Democrats. The partizan breakdown, of course, is that Democrats are way more likely than Republicans to say that, that Trump is going too far. But more than half the country says Trump's going too far with presidential power. 48% say Trump has gone too far changing how the US government works. This includes Doge. 51% say he's doing too much cutting of federal programs. 53% say it was a bad idea to try to shut down USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
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Unknown A
54% say giving Elon a prominent role was a bad idea. 58% say they think Trump's plan to take over Gaza and kick out all the Palestinians and prevent them from coming back. 58% say that's a bad idea. So on the issues, it's not going well. Then we get to this kind of squishier metric. Do you feel the country is going the right direction or the wrong direction? Do you feel optimistic or pessimistic about what's happening? 54% of Americans feel pessimistic about Donald Trump's second term. 75% of Americans say Trump's handling of the presidency is aligning with expectations. So that's critical. 25% of the country is surprised by what Trump is doing. You, and I might say, how the hell could you be surprised? But many people don't really pay attention to campaigns or what's going on until it's actually people are in power and they're starting to do things.
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Unknown A
And then there was also some denial. But the fact that 25% of Americans are surprised by what Trump's done, it suggests maybe some of Those people are reachable. 21% say it's a bad surprise. So that's, that's the critical thing. You could be surprised pleasantly. You could go, I'm surprised this is going so well with Trump. Or you could be surprised negatively. Of the 25% 4% are positively surprised, 21% are negatively surprised. That's a lot of people who are saying, this is not what I thought we were going to get. What else is important here? Only 23% of Americans see that, believe that democracy is under attack. So the takeaway to me is there are almost certainly reachable Americans whose views as to what they expected to get from this presidency and what they're getting, they are open to saying, I've got to revise my understanding, I've got to revise my opinion.
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Unknown A
I need to do a rethink. At the same time, Americans have not come to believe in large numbers, majority numbers, 23% of the country still a lot, but not, not a majority, that Trump represents an attack on democracy. So Democrats need to work with that. And what Democrats need to do is say, okay, we know there's opposition to what Trump is doing, we know there's disgust with the way this is going down, but let's focus to a degree, as Elizabeth Warren said yesterday, on the pragmatic realities, economically and otherwise, and maybe not go to, he's destroying democracy. Now, is he trying to destroy democracy? It seems that he is. But we need to meet voters where they are. And if most Americans don't believe that that's what's going on, but they're concerned about Doge, they're concerned about Elon, they're concerned about economics, then that's where Democrats need to meet voters.
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Unknown A
Will they do it? As we start to think about the midterm election, I don't know. We'll keep talking to senators and members of Congress and asking them, did you know that countless commercial databases and people search sites are storing your personal information? Anyone from an employer to a former partner can use these platforms to get details about your online presence, your home address, phone number, email, license plate, family members, financial information, even political views. Europe has laws that offer some protection, but in the US the data is widely accessible. Even the FBI will buy this information from companies to spy on people without a search warrant. Our sponsor, Incogni, provides a solution. It takes just seconds to sign up and Incogni will send removal requests to all of the major data brokers, legally compelling them to get rid of your data. Incogni keeps you informed throughout the process.
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Unknown A
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