Already “underwater” polling figures for Attorney General Pam Bondi have cratered even further this week, says CNN statistician Harry Enten.
The data guru revealed that Bondi’s favorability dropped to -19 on Wednesday morning after she enraged the MAGA base by using the assassination of Charlie Kirk as a pretext to crack down on Americans’ freedom of speech.
“Pam Bondi was already underwater, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she goes underwater more,” Enten said on air.
He added that surveys show she is the “least liked member of Donald Trump’s cabinet, and it ain’t even close.” She is followed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at -13 and ICE Barbie Kristi Noem at -11.
Enten’s graphic showed that he reached those figures by aggregating top polls, including a survey by Quinnipiac University.
Bondi, 59, was already less popular than her cabinet colleagues because of her handling of the so-called “Epstein Files.” She promised in February that a client list of the sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein was sitting on her desk—just to backtrack months later and say such a list does not exist.
“Pam Bondi made some big promises on the Epstein files and could not deliver,” Enten noted.
The statistician added that Bondi’s free speech controversy has only made things worse on her and the White House.
“Who is the biggest pain in the rear end in the Donald Trump administration?” Enten asked. “For him, who is he having to answer for? Oftentimes, it’s for Pam Bondi.”
Bondi has since walked back her remarks, made Monday on The Katie Miller Podcast, that said the DOJ would go after those who perpetrate “hate speech.” Now, she says the federal government will only target those who incite violence with their speech, which appears to have done little to cool down criticism from Trump supporters.
Hate speech that crosses the line into threats of violence is NOT protected by the First Amendment. It’s a crime. For far too long, we’ve watched the radical left normalize threats, call for assassinations, and cheer on political violence. That era is over.Under 18 U.S.C. §…
— Attorney General Pamela Bondi (@AGPamBondi) September 16, 2025
Top conservatives were outraged that Bondi attempted to use Kirk’s murder as a way to infringe on the First Amendment—something he would have surely opposed, given his past comments declaring himself a “free speech absolutist.”
“There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech, and there is no place, especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie, in our society,” Bondi said Monday.
She added, “We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”
Two years prior, Kirk posted that all speech in America must be protected. Even speech that conservatives like him do not remotely agree with.
“Hate speech does not exist legally in America,” he said. “There’s ugly speech. There’s gross speech. There’s evil speech. And ALL of it is protected by the First Amendment. Keep America free.”
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