Trump takes ownership of economy amid shaky polling (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: In a new interview with NBC News, President Trump took ownership of the current state of the economy, saying, I'm very proud of it, he said. This comes as there is new polling showing that many voters are not as happy as the president with the way that things are going with said economy. CNN's chief data analyst, Harry Anton, is running the numbers on this, but also speaks to the changing nature of President Trump's base right now. Talk me through this.

[00:00:23] Speaker 2: Yeah, OK. So you know, if you know anything about Donald Trump, you know that he built his two presidential victories on winning voters without a college degree, while Donald Trump's base with non-college voters is absolutely collapsing. What are we talking about here? Well, why don't we just take a look. Voters without a college degree on Donald Trump. Look at this. Back in 2024, he won those voters over Kamala Harris by 14 points. You come over to this side of the screen, what's his net approval rating with him? He is underwater by nine points. That's a 23 point switcheroo with his base of non-college voters. He is absolutely collapsing with the group of voters that helped put him into the White House, Kate.

[00:01:01] Speaker 1: So how are these non-college voters feeling about 2026?

[00:01:04] Speaker 2: OK, so you know, you see this, you see this drop of 23 points, right, from plus 14 Trump to now he's underwater by nine points. How is that impacting their views on how they're going to vote for Congress? Well, you see a similar story going on here, right? Take a look. In the 2024 election, Republicans won those voters, those non-college voters by 13 points. Now they're just ahead by just one, two, three, four points. When you can count it on one hand, you know that you're in trouble if you're Donald John Trump and the Republican Party, in this case the Republican Party, when it comes to the voters in Congress. And of course, a four point lead among non-college voters is not anywhere close to being good enough because Democrats are dominating among voters with a college degree up by 20 points. At this point, the Democratic base with college voters is rising and the Republican base with non-college voters is collapsing.

[00:01:52] Speaker 1: One of the big promises, circling back to the economy, one of the big promises from President Trump was bringing back manufacturing jobs. And that speaks to somewhat of this split that you're kind of highlighting here. How, what are the hard numbers on this?

[00:02:06] Speaker 2: Yeah, OK. One of the reasons why Donald Trump has been able to bring non-college voters into the Republican ranks is because he said, hey, I'm going to bring back those jobs, those manufacturing jobs that were lost to free trade, right? Bring in those tariffs, restrict those jobs from moving overseas. But there's just a bit of a problem going on here. How about those manufacturing jobs? In December of 2025, compared to the beginning of the Donald Trump presidency, the manufacturing jobs have gone adios amigos, see you later, they've been going away, down 63,000 versus January of 2025 with an even larger collapse since Liberation Day, right? So what we're dealing with is a Donald Trump message that is not actually meeting the reality. And that is why non-college voters have been going away from the president of the United States and away from Republicans as well.

[00:02:55] Speaker 1: Important message in all of these numbers. Thanks so much, Eric.

[00:02:58] Speaker 2: Thank you.

[00:02:58] Speaker 1: President Trump now declaring the country is in the Trump economy.

[00:03:04] Speaker 3: Oh, I'd say we're there now. I'm very proud of it. 5.6%. You know, we have a GDP of 5.6 despite a shutdown. We had a 42 day shutdown and they call it the Democrat shutdown. And because of that, I lost a point and a half. I would have been at a seven GDP, which hasn't been seen, I don't know, ever, maybe, maybe ever. Yeah. And I think 26 is even going to be better.

[00:03:28] Speaker 1: CNN's Kevin Lipchak live at the White House for us this morning. Kevin, what else is the president saying here? Yeah.

[00:03:35] Speaker 4: And it is striking just to hear him now take ownership of the economy after spending most of last year laying the blame directly on Joe Biden. And, you know, he even said at one point that he would take credit for the good parts, but that the bad parts were Biden's fault. Now, we should note that some of the numbers that the president used there don't comport with what the government have put out. The president saying that GDP was at 5.6%. You know, the last reading that we got, which was for the third quarter of last year, showed that annualized growth was at 4.4%. We haven't gotten a figure for the last quarter of last year because of that government shutdown. So the estimates have been much lower, although one estimate from the Atlanta Fed put the rate at 5.4%. So that could be perhaps what the president is pointing to there. I think it all, I think, points to this disconnect perhaps between what the president says is the state of the economy and what most Americans feel is the state of the economy. You know, a CNN survey last month found that 55% of Americans said that President Trump's policies had worsened U.S. economic conditions. 32% said that they had improved them. 13% said that there were no effect. Now, how the president reconciles those viewpoints with his view of how the economy is doing will certainly be his challenge in this very important election year. White House officials have said that he will be hitting the road with this economic message. They at one point said that he would be out once a week, although so far he's only done two of these trips and both of those speeches sort of veered off in multiple different directions. The takeaway wasn't necessarily the economy, the president talking about his grievances, about immigration, about all manner of other topics. Perhaps his biggest opportunity to make this argument will be at the State of the Union address that's coming up in about two weeks' time on February 24th. But certainly there is a recognition here at the White House that it will be the economy and it will be the president's imperative to convince Americans that the economy is doing well. That will be sort of make or break for Republicans in this very critical midterm election year.

[00:05:45] Speaker 1: It is now the Trump economy until maybe someone decides that he doesn't believe so anymore. It's great to see you, Kevin. Thanks so much.

[00:05:53] Speaker 5: The president says he's very proud of where the U.S. economy stands under his leadership. He was also quick to take credit for the Dow crossing the 50,000 mark, pointing to his tariffs in a social media post and making a bold prediction that the blue chip index would hit 100,000 by the end of his term. CNN senior reporter Matt Egan is covering this from New York. So a bold claim there from the president, Matt, 100,000 by the time he leaves office. In what way do we get to that, do you think? What's your prediction?

[00:06:26] Speaker 6: Well, Christina, yeah, look, the president does sound a bit like the stock picker in chief there, clearly taking a victory lap after that major market milestone of Dow 50,000 for the first time ever on Friday. Normally, though, we don't really hear presidents make specific market predictions within a specific time frame, right? Normally presidents don't want to hitch their ride to the ups and downs of Wall Street. But clearly we've left the world of normal quite a while ago. Now, to get to Dow 100,000, I mean, this would really require an epic move, especially given how much the market has already rallied. You look right there. So this would require about a 34 percent per year gain. Some context, that's roughly triple the Dow's historical annualized return. Now, it's not unprecedented, though. It has happened in the past, especially when the market was starting at relatively low levels, right? So, for example, after the 2008 financial crisis, the Dow did double in less than three years. And it happened after the COVID crash as well. Of course, that's not really a great comparison for right now, because we're not starting at a low level, as you can see on that chart. The Dow has already basically tripled over the last decade or so. The better comparison might be the mid to late 1990s, when the Dow did double. Of course, back then, that was driven by the Internet boom. And in hindsight, those gains were unsustainable because eventually that bubble burst. Market veteran Art Hogan, he told me, look, Dow 65,000, 70,000, maybe that's doable within the president's term. But he said getting to 100,000, that sounds just overly optimistic. And so, look, Christina, time will tell if the president proves right here or if there's a reason that presidents don't make specific market predictions like this.

[00:08:30] Speaker 5: Time will certainly tell. And we will stay quiet until that moment. Matt, appreciate it. Thank you.