One year since his surprise election victory, Donald Trump has just captured another big win, though this one can’t exactly be called surprising.
Trump is now the least popular president ever at this point in his term. In a staggering, 33-point landslide, he has defeated Obama, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower and Truman in the we-don’t-like-him contest – every U.S. president since modern polling began.
And the Russians didn’t have to steal this one for him. He’s done it all by himself.
According to the new Washington Post-ABC survey, only 37 percent of Americans now approve of the job Trump has done, just slightly outpacing the national approval rating for bed bugs, head lice and Jeff Session’s truth-telling skills. Sixty-five percent say Trump has accomplished “not much” or “little or nothing” since he came into office. His most notable talent? Dividing America. Fewer than 3 in 10 Americans say he’s done a good job on race relations. Half of all Americans say Trump’s biased against black people. Fifty-five percent say he is biased against women.
Marvels the Post: “He is the only president dating back to Harry S. Truman whose approval rating at this point in his presidency is net negative – by 22 points. The next worst recorded in that time was Bill Clinton, who had a net positive of 11 points.”
These are truly stunning numbers. And every indication is they will only get worse.
NBC reported on Sunday that special counsel Robert Mueller has all the evidence he needs to indict Michael Flynn, the pro-Putin general Trump had as national security advisor for 24 days. That comes less than a week after a Washington grand jury indicted Trump campaign officials Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, and Mueller revealed he’d secured a guilty plea from foreign-policy advisor George Papadopoulos.
Someone had better order more ankle bracelets, quick!
For most of the next two weeks, Trump is hopscotching across Asia, bringing his own special bluster to the North Korean nuclear threat, Chinese trade policy and other highly combustible foreign-policy challenges.
Let’s take our own poll. Quick show of hands: Will Trump’s personal involvement make these dicey situations better or worse?
Metro columnist Ellis Henican is the best-selling author of a dozen books, including “TRUMPITUDE: The Secret Confessions of Donald’s Brain,” coming Nov. 28 from Post Hill Press. Ellis is on Twitter @henican.
