Trump re-election was in trouble even before the pandemic hit. His presidency has been a dumpster fire from the beginning, even culminating in an impeachment that was only thwarted by blind partisanship on the part of the GOP. Nonetheless, Trump probably could have rallied enough of the American people to his side to win re-election if he’d been even slightly competent in handling this crisis. This is the sort of thing that makes or breaks a president.
It’s broken this one. He couldn’t possibly have done worse.
As reported Friday, approval of his handling of the pandemic has fallen from 51% in late March to 38% now, with disapproval up 15 points. He’s lost 7 points in approval of his handling of the economy, to 50%, with disapproval up 9.
Trump’s overall job approval rating is 39% in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates – down 9 points in the course of the pandemic, with disapproval up 11. Trump remains the first president in modern polling never to achieve majority approval for his work in office, with the lowest career average on record.
Bottom line:
Judging by his performance today, I don’t think Trump is going to be able to turn this around. Instead of making a change in strategy he’s doing what he always does, doubling down. I don’t think it’s going to work for him.
Here’s an exchange on Fox News this morning about Joe Biden:
TRUMP: Biden can’t put two sentences together. They wheel him out. He goes up — he repeats — they ask him questions. He reads a teleprompter and then he goes back into his basement. You tell me the American people want to have that in an age where we’re in trouble with other nations that are looking to do numbers on us.
WALLACE: So let me ask you a direct question.
TRUMP: No, no…
WALLACE: No, I’m going to ask you a direct question about Joe Biden. Is Joe Biden senile?
TRUMP: I don’t want to say that. I’d say he’s not competent to be president. To be president, you have to be sharp and tough and so many other things. He doesn’t even come out of his basement. They think, “Oh this is a great campaign.” So he goes in, I’ll then make a speech, it’ll be a great speech, and some young guy, starts writing, ‘Vice President Biden said this, this, this, this.’ He didn’t say it. Joe doesn’t know he’s alive, OK? He doesn’t know he’s alive.
Do the American people want that, number one. Number two, I built the greatest economy ever built anywhere in the world; not only of this country, anywhere in the world. Until we got hit with the China virus. We got hit with the virus, shouldn’t have happened, and we had to close up, we saved millions of lives. Now we’ve opened it up, got to go back to school. We’re open. We’ve got to do things.
We had the best job numbers we’ve ever had last month. We should have good ones coming up in two weeks. Look, I built the greatest economy in history, I’m now doing it again. You see the numbers; the numbers are through the roof. The Democrats are purposely keeping their schools closed, keeping their states closed. I called Michigan, I want to have a big rally in Michigan. Do you know we’re not allowed to have a rally in Michigan? Do you know we’re not allowed to have a rally in Minnesota? Do you know we’re not allowed to have a rally in Nevada? We’re not allowed to have rallies.
I think even his most fervent cult members must have been taken aback by this interview this morning. He is rambling incoherently as he’s claiming that Joe Biden is so old and addled that he doesn’t know he’s alive. I suspect some of his senior followers might just be a little bit disturbed by that. Then he bizarrely claims the economic numbers are great (they are anything but) and whines about not being allowed to hold rallies in the middle of the pandemic which he has made much worse than it needed to be.
He’s losing Republicans now:
Rising disapproval of Trump’s job performance is broadly based. It’s up 22 points since March among those very worried about catching the coronavirus, to 82%. It’s also up in two of his key support groups, +20 points among rural Americans and +12 points among evangelical white Protestants, to 45 and 30%, respectively. Disapproval also is up especially among Southerners (+18 points); and Blacks, women, moderates and suburbanites, all up 15 to 16.
By partisanship, Democrats now disapprove nearly unanimously of Trump’s work in office, up 17 points in three and a half months to 95%; 56% of independents also disapprove, up 11. Among Republicans, 16% disapprove, up 10 points from late May.
Apparently he believes it’s because he hasn’t lied, bragged and whined enough lately so he’s decided to do more of it.
Update —
The last few paragraphs of Mary Trump’s book:
