President Donald Trump has offered up a bizarre new excuse for his plummeting poll numbers—“silent” support.
With a fresh suite of opinion polls showing his approval rating sinking as Americans increasingly question his leadership and priorities, a forlorn-looking Trump hit back on Monday by claiming that the numbers must be fudged.
Speaking at the White House at an event to honor families killed by illegal immigrants, he also singled out Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem—who has come under scrutiny over ICE’s heavy-handed tactics and her alleged affair with senior adviser Corey Lewandowski—insisting that she and border czar Tom Homan were doing an “incredible” job.
“It just amazes me that there’s not more support out there,” he said.
“We actually have silent support. I think it’s silent. I think that’s how I won.”
The comments capped off a head-scratching event in which the 79-year-old president mused about his mortality, pushed his ongoing election lies, and got so distracted at one point that he stopped mid-sentence to say hello to a woman in the audience who’d had eye problems.
“I gave her money to fix her eyes,” he said. “The doctor ripped me off, but that’s ok.”
The president also insisted during his rambling remarks that he had built the greatest economy in the world, a mantra he foreshadowed repeating at Tuesday’s State of the Union address.
But research suggests many Americans are far from convinced, not just on the economy but on his leadership more broadly.
A new Washington Post–ABC/Ipsos poll released on Monday, for instance, shows 60 per cent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s job performance, with 47 per cent strongly disapproving—the highest disapproval level in years.
A CNN poll released today also found that only 32 per cent of Americans believe Trump has had the right priorities, while 68 per cent say he hasn’t paid enough attention to the country’s most important problems.
And in a clear warning sign ahead of November’s midterm elections, Trump’s approval among independent voters also now sits around 26 per cent, a record low, while his popularity among young voters, many of whom drifted to Trump at the last election, is also in decline.
Immigration has become a particularly sensitive topic for the president, particularly following the killing of U.S. citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good earlier this year.
But speaking at the White House today, Trump complained that part of the problem was the media, who he claimed were not covering enough of his achievements or the stories of families who had lost their loved ones to illegal immigrants.
“This should be important for everybody, including the media, but they don’t cover it fairly, I tell you that. It’s shocking,” he said.
“These are sick people that don’t cover stories like that—or don’t cover them, which is even worse.”
He also praised Noem, his embattled Homeland Security Secretary, who he sidelined last month following her botched response to Pretti and Goode’s deaths in Minneapolis.
Since then, Noem, who has earned the nickname “ICE Barbie” due to her tendency to cosplay at press events, has come under scrutiny over her alleged affair with senior adviser Corey Lewandowski and their management style.
In one particularly damaging leak, Lewandowski reportedly fired a Coast Guard pilot after a blanket belonging to Noem was left behind on a different plane. It has also been reported that the pair travel around in a luxury jet meant for “high-profile deportations”—complete with a private cabin in the back.
But Trump said of Noem and Homan on Thursday: “They’ve been incredible for the job they’ve done. They take nothing but abuse, but they’re pretty hardened to that because they know they’re doing the right thing.”
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