President Donald Trump is deep in denial about his record-low approval ratings.
“The Polls from the Fake News are, like the News itself, FAKE!” he wrote late Monday night on Truth Social. “We are doing GREAT, better than ever before.”
A recent poll from ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos found the president’s overall approval rating was a dismal 39 percent, on par with then-President Joe Biden’s average approval rating of 38 percent before he lost the last election.
The latest New York Times/Siena Poll found just 42 percent of registered voters approved of the job Trump is doing, while even polling from Trump’s beloved Fox News showed the president enjoyed just a 44 percent approval rating.
The numbers a new low for a president approaching his first 100 days in office.
Biden had a 54 percent approval rating at the same point in his presidency, while former presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush were at 62 percent and 63 percent, respectively, Fox News reported last week.
The president’s market-tanking trade wars have proven to be particularly unpopular.
Trump announced a “Liberation Day” on April 2 as he unveiled universal 10 percent tariffs against all products entering the U.S. from other countries. Additional tariffs were added for products from countries with which the U.S. has large trade deficits, including China.
The duties are an import tax paid by American companies, with the added costs typically passed on to consumers. Other countries vowed to retaliate against the measures, leading to a tit-for-tat with China that ended with Trump imposing a 145-percent duty on all Chinese products and China announcing a 125-percent tax on American products.
The rates have gotten so high they have effectively become trade embargoes, with companies in both the U.S. and China saying they can’t sell at those prices.
CEOs of major retail giants warned last week that prices would rise and shelves would soon remain empty if the president didn’t reverse course. The trade wars have also sent global stock markets tumbling—wiping out trillions of dollars in value—and even shaken the usually stable U.S. bond markets.
The S&P 500 is down 8 percent since Trump’s inauguration—its worst run during a president’s first 100 days in office in more than 50 years. Some financial analysts worry the U.S. is heading toward recession.
As a result, survey respondents gave Trump just a 38 percent approval rating on the economy, which has traditionally been the his strongest issue among voters, the Fox New survey found. The president received just 33 percent approval on his tariffs and inflation policy.
In response, Trump called on Rupert Murdoch to fire his “Trump Hating, Fake Pollster” and wrote that “FAKE POLLS FROM FAKE NEWS ORGANIZATIONS… should be investigated for ELECTION FRAUD.”
The CEO warnings and market response to his tariffs, however, seem to have rattled him. Last week, he told reporters he was in “direct contact” with China, and that they two countries were speaking “every day” in an effort to de-escalate the trade war—a claim that Beijing denies.
At the same time, the president insists the economy is doing great and Americans are about to get rich.
“The USA lost Billions of Dollars A DAY in International Trade under Sleepy Joe Biden,” he wrote Monday in another Truth Social post. “I have now stemmed that tide, and will be making a fortune, very soon. Stay tuned as we MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!!!”
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