Trump’s turbulent 2026 tests norms as approval stays flat (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Glad to see something getting done.

[00:00:02] Speaker 2: It's definitely very scary. Everyone's disappointed, exasperated. I think that there's a larger plan that he has in mind.

[00:00:12] Speaker 3: What do Americans make of 2026? Because it's been non-stop. The US removed Nicolas Maduro. It said it would run Venezuela. It's been claiming Greenland. A federal agent killed Rene Good in Minneapolis. The head of the central bank is under investigation. A journalist's home was raided by the FBI. How America acts and how it's governed are changing. Norms are being broken. I do think Trump's crossing some lines. That's interesting. Are you comfortable with him crossing those lines?

[00:00:43] Speaker 1: I'm comfortable with him crossing some lines. Because? Because sometimes you have to get things done. You have to break an egg to make an omelette.

[00:00:55] Speaker 4: I didn't predict Venezuela. It's very upsetting, especially as someone who is studying history, to see this blatant act of imperialism.

[00:01:05] Speaker 3: What about the counter-argument from the Trump administration, which is that this was an appropriate intervention to make this part of the world more secure for America?

[00:01:15] Speaker 4: What I think is that people of whatever country it is should be able to determine who is ruling their country.

[00:01:24] Speaker 3: One poll found only 35% of Americans approve of the US running Venezuela. Another poll found just 30% approve of using federal funds to buy Greenland. Only 14% support using military force, though both of those options now appear off the table. Then overall, there's President Trump's approval rating. It's around 40%, similar to Joe Biden after a year and Trump in his first term, but much lower than Barack Obama and George W Bush. Trump's approval rating is low, and since the spring, it hasn't moved much.

[00:01:59] Speaker 5: It has been a remarkable two weeks in the United States. It's been a remarkably tumultuous year in the United States, but one thing that has been remarkably stable has been the president's approval rating.

[00:02:10] Speaker 3: That stability rests in part on the fact that overall, most Republicans still approve of what they see.

[00:02:17] Speaker 6: In all of this, I continue to see President Trump as someone who is willing to defend Americans.

[00:02:23] Speaker 3: Some people around the world are quite shocked by how America has behaved in the last couple of weeks.

[00:02:30] Speaker 6: The drumbeat of President Trump is that he is protecting America for Americans, and I think that people across the world who are clutching their pearls because President Trump is being bold in this way have gotten too comfortable with America being the pocketbook for the world.

[00:02:52] Speaker 3: Later this year, the midterm elections will offer Americans a chance to make their feelings known. Already, we're seeing pushback to Trump from protesters and from the Democrats.

[00:03:03] Speaker 7: There's no version of Trump's vision of the world that makes America safer, more prosperous and more free, and that, you know, we, those of us who disagree with what he's trying to do, we need to organize ourselves more to counter what he's doing.

[00:03:18] Speaker 3: How do you explain the response that we're seeing? Because some might say that it's been surprisingly low-key given the strength of feeling that we know some Americans have.

[00:03:33] Speaker 7: Well, I agree with that. I don't think that our, what we call it, our pro-democracy movement here in America has not found its stride. You know, people never thought something like this could happen here, and I think that there has been, we have been slow to awaken as a nation.

[00:03:52] Speaker 3: Polling suggests that some issues impact voters' view of Trump more than others, and they're not necessarily the ones that have demanded attention these past few weeks.

[00:04:02] Speaker 5: If opinions about the president are to change, I think we only see it in the scope of whether Americans believe that the president is ignoring the issue they care the most about, which is the economy.

[00:04:13] Speaker 3: The US economy is growing, but consumer and energy prices are up. Affordability remains a political pressure on Trump. But perhaps because this is Trump's second and final term, perhaps because there are minimal dissenting voices around him, he's doing exactly as he pleases. Though it can be argued, Trump always pursues his preoccupations regardless of political circumstance. Whatever the reason, this new year, President Trump is relentlessly upending America's approach to its allies and to law and order at home. For Americans, that's raising profound questions about their country.

[00:04:52] Speaker 8: Everyone's disappointed, exasperated, and just tired. I think a lot of the jokes in the new year were that it's been a long year and we've still got three more to go.

[00:05:04] Speaker 2: I trust him as leader, and I trust that our country has prevailed, and we've been through a lot, and we'll continue to work through it.