Poll: Majority Thinks Trump Is Making Changes Too Quickly
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What is the introduction to this podcast episode?
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Hi, this is Steven from Salt Lake City, Utah, where I'm driving home with a newly adopted 18-month-old puppy to introduce her to my wife and surprise the kids. Oh, boy. This podcast was recorded at 107 p.m.
Eastern Time on Monday, March 3rd, 2025.
Things may have changed by the time you hear it, but we'll still be learning to love this new addition to our family. Okay, here's the show.
The dogs of NPR welcome them.
18 months is a great age, too, because you don't have to usually train them to do everything.
It's not like an eight-week-old, you know, or something like that, which would be a lot of work. But I have to say, giving a puppy as a surprise is not usually the best tactic.
I was wondering about that.
They must have been begging for one for a long time. That's usually what happens.
Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast. I'm Sarah McCammon. I cover politics.
I'm Domenico Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And I'm Mara Liason, senior national political correspondent.
How does the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll reflect on Trump's approval rating?
Today on the show, a pulse check from the latest NPR PBS News Marist poll. How are Americans reacting and responding to President Trump's policies so far? And is he making any headway on one of the chief messages of his campaign, which was, of course, addressing high costs and economic concerns? Domenico, we're going to start with you.
What are the public's views on Trump's economic policies and inflation concerns?
Before we get into some of the nitty gritty here, I just want to take a broader look. What does Trump's approval rating look like overall?
What we found here is that Trump has a 45 percent approval rating, which is lower, by the way, than any past president in the last 80 years since Gallup has been measuring that number. So, you know, clearly Americans still very divided on Trump. I think one of the big warning signs for him in this poll is independence, because only 34 percent of independents approve of the job that he's doing.
And Mara, I mean, this is better than where Trump was when he left office in 2021, right?
That's right. But he's still underwater. He's never had a net positive approval rating as president. And he is trying to do things that are very dramatic, big changes. Now, Donald Trump ran as the change candidate. He was elected because people wanted to make big changes. But we don't know if they wanted to make the changes that he's making now. like completely upend U.S. foreign policy so that the U.S. is now aligned, at least in the last United Nations vote, with Russia and North Korea and against the Western democracies of Europe. We don't know if they wanted him to radically downsize the federal government. We just don't know the answer to that. We know that they wanted him to bring down the price of eggs.
57% of people expect prices to go up in the next six months, which was the thing that I think is hard to argue is what got Trump in the White House in the first place. He has said that, you know, he could fix it. He would fix the economy. He would fix prices. But after he was elected... The price of apples goes up. It doubles. What can you do?
How do party lines affect perceptions of economic changes under Trump?
And that's it. And when you have 57 percent of Americans saying they think the price of groceries will increase in the next six months, that affects inflation. Inflation is made up a lot of things. It's made up of supply chain problems. It's also made up of expectations. There's a psychology to this. If a majority of people think that groceries are going to get more expensive, they're going to change their behavior.
Right. And he stressed that during the campaign because he knew what we knew, which is that voters were saying again and again that the economy was, if not their top issue, one of their very top issues. You know, Domenico, when you look at the numbers, though, it's so interesting that he just got elected largely on this issue. Fifty seven percent of voters think now that prices are going to go up.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the introduction to this podcast episode?
0:00–1:24
2
How does the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll reflect on Trump's approval rating?
1:24–1:45
3
What are the public's views on Trump's economic policies and inflation concerns?
1:45–3:23
4
How do party lines affect perceptions of economic changes under Trump?
3:23–5:43
5
What role does Elon Musk play in the Trump administration's changes?
5:43–8:53
6
How does the meeting between Trump and Zelensky impact U.S. policy in Ukraine?
8:53–16:23