CNN poll finds Trump underwater on issues at year one (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: We're talking about these brand new CNN polling numbers out just today on the president's approval rating, which is low just 39% He's underwater on all the issues Inside this poll there are some rather Notable shifts in some cases some historic metrics with us now CNN chief data analyst Harry And Harry we talked about voters saying that the president's term so far is a failure year. But put that in perspective here.

[00:00:28] Speaker 2: Yeah. It turns out that love or presidencies are not better the second time around, according to the American people, because what are we talking about here? Trump's term has been was a success or a failure. You know, back in April of twenty twenty four, when it came to term number one, the majority of Americans said that Donald Trump's first term in office was a success. Fifty five percent. That's a big reason why he was able to get a second term in office. They look back finally upon his first term in office. But now come to this side of the screen. Now after term two, year one, how do Americans view it? Look at that. A failure. Fail, fail, fail. 58 percent, just 42 percent say a success. These numbers look a lot more like what it did about six months into Trump's term number one than it did looking back upon the entirety of Trump's term number one, which of course gave him that second term in office. The clear majority, 58 percent, nearly three in five Americans say it is a failure.

[00:01:23] Speaker 1: Okay, so this number, 58% saying it's a failure one year into a second term, where does that rank historically?

[00:01:28] Speaker 2: Okay, where does it rank historically? Now this is a little bit difficult, right, because Trump has said two presidencies, right? Other people who are, say, a year in a term, number two, in fact, have had a continuous term. But we're going to try and do it for you right here, which is essentially, okay, term or terms have been a failure, about a year in a term, number two. You see this for Donald Trump right here, 58% term number two first year, 58% say failure. Come here. Who's the next closest? George W. Bush. 52% said his presidency had been a failure about a year into term number two. So Trump is even worse than George W. Bush after Katrina, after a long period in the Iraq war. And this is really, really bad when you compare it to George W. Bush. Barack Obama was 48% and then Bill Clinton way down here at 26%. Of course, his approval was sky high. But the bottom line is this. About a year into term number two, Trump's numbers look worse than any other president in which either CNN or the Pew Research Center is ask this question. The only one really close, Joe Biden, Joe Biden, if you look here, was at 57% failure in term one, however. Term one, this is term two, but he's even doing a point worse, though, within the margin of error.

[00:02:35] Speaker 1: So historically bad for presidents in their second term here. So what do people think it will be like when they look back at the second term?

[00:02:41] Speaker 2: Yeah, okay. So, you know, we're talking about this and we're talking about 58% who say that Trump is a failure a year into term number two, and that is historically bad. But I think the other thing that is so important is Trump wants to make his mark in history, right? He wants to fundamentally change the United States of America. Well, on this metric, get this, Trump's second term will fundamentally change the U.S. and the changes will remain well beyond his presidency. In April of 2025, it was 52%. A majority of Americans said he'd fundamentally change the United States. Now it's just 41% of Americans who say that term number two will in fact fundamentally change the United States. So it's not just that the American people see term number two as a failure, they also don't think that Trump is making changes that will fundamentally change the United States and last well beyond. So you just go across this poll and you look at this, not just the numbers right here, right now, but what people see into the future and how people view everything. And it's just a big F-A-I-L.

[00:03:40] Speaker 1: Okay. Thank God you can spell it because I can't. Didn't know where you're going there. Harry, you can look at this 41% a few different ways. very interesting though to think of what that means. Great to see you this morning. Great to see you.

[00:03:50] Speaker 3: It is day 361 of President Trump's second term and we've got a brand new CNN poll about President Trump's first year back in office. As our political director David Chalian said this morning, you really have to squint hard to find even a small piece of good news for the president in this poll. A majority of the country, 58%, say President Trump's first year has been a failure. That includes two-thirds of independent voters. Now, why is that? Across the board, Americans disapprove of how the president is handling every major issue. He's at 39% on the economy, 42% on immigration. Those are two of the biggest reasons that voters say they sent him back to the White House. The economy is far and away American's top concern and has been for years. Right now, two-thirds of voters say the president is focused on the wrong things. And maybe even more importantly, two-thirds say they don't think he cares about people like them. It's a new year, it is an election year, and whether the White House can reverse these trend lines can be and will be critical in November. I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters today on this Friday. Phil Mattingly, your takeaway.

[00:05:07] Speaker 4: What I find most fascinating about the numbers is one, in the first year, this administration did an extraordinary amount of things and did so many of them through executive authority, unilateral action, pushing the boundaries of that authority to levels that we hadn't seen before. And in large part, they were things that the president actually campaigned on and said he was going to do. And I think the disconnect, at least based on the numbers we're looking at right now and from our reporting out in the field, is voters are saying, we didn't really vote for that. We wanted the economy. We cared about prices. We cared about affordability. And we cared about immigration in the broad sense, not necessarily in the what we're seeing in the interior in the viral video sense right now. And that has been, you know, you had a group of advisors and a president who were emboldened by an electoral victory that was without question and believe that they had a mandate. They are utilizing that mandate or pushing that mandate to a degree, we've seen this in the past with other administrations, to a degree that maybe voters aren't entirely comfortable with and at least certainly aren't right now based on the numbers we're seeing.

[00:06:09] Speaker 3: And Nia, let's look at the trend line here on overall, and then on those two big issues that we were talking about. First of all, overall, the president came in, February was the first time that CNN polled, at 48% overall approval rating, which was a record high for him. It's very high for President Trump. And then you see the overall go down to where it is at 39%. So the economy, just starting in March, you can see that go down and immigration also go down. I mean, obviously, as we've said, the economy in this poll and just, I mean, just understanding the world that we're living in is clearly the number one issue. But the fact that immigration has gone down like that for the president who has a sort of a calling card on closing the border, and people are not looking south, or maybe a little bit north, they're looking in the interior on immigration, and obviously the economy is hurting him.

[00:07:11] Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, this one sort of constant theme out of this White House has been chaos, but it hasn't been chaos for good, right? It hasn't been chaos that redounded to the benefit of average Americans, sort of disruption that advances the goals that people have for their individual lives, It's just been chaos, right? I mean, if you think about the beginning months of this White House, Elon Musk firing federal workers, and then there was Liberation Day where the stock market tanked because there were all of these tariffs. And now Americans look on their screens and they look at what's going on in Minnesota. People have all sorts of beliefs about immigration. Maybe there are too many folks who are in the interior and they like the fact that the president has sealed the southern border, but what they see on their screens now, it's sort of out of context. Like, why are they there? There was a Trump person who I was talking to, diehard Trump supporter, that was her question. Like, why exactly are they on the streets of Minneapolis in this way, taking battering rams to people's houses in some instances? Obviously they killed an American citizen as well. And so I think that is the problem. The through line has just been all over the place. He's constantly inundating Americans with sort of images and language. For instance, oh, maybe there shouldn't be elections and Americans are like, how do you pay for childcare? How do you pay for healthcare? How do you pay for groceries? That is where they are and he is somewhere else all the time.

[00:08:44] Speaker 3: And on the election thing, I should note that the White House says that the president was joking. He is not going to cancel elections. So that's good to hear. Emily Davies, so good to have you. Welcome to Inside Politics. You cover the White House for the Washington Post And this is something I wanted to point out and get your take on this part of the poll. Trump puts the country above his personal gain. Yes, 37 percent, no, 63 percent. What does that tell you?

[00:09:13] Speaker 6: You know, I was surprised at first to see that number and recognize how many Americans are really questioning that part of the president, which I think was a real centerpiece of his campaign that people related to him thought they saw themselves in him and vice versa. But when I've been out in the country recently, a lot of people have proactively brought up the East Wing demolition to me, really saying that, you know, watching him do that was A, concerning to the state of democracy in this country, but B, they're wondering why he's spending money on that when they're struggling. And I think it's those tangible examples of the president's priorities that make Americans question his intentions when his messaging is so strong and he's so used to relying on it. It's the physical examples of his money and where it's going and his focus and where it's going that I think change people's minds. Yeah. I mean, it's really, really interesting.