Most Americans Disapprove of Trump's Handling of Economy Already

A majority of Americans already disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy according to a new poll.

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It seems like just yesterday, pundits were telling us that the American people trusted Trump more than Biden on the economy, and they seemed loathe to fact-check this carefully crafted but false narrative.

Cut to two months after Trump took office for his second term, and now, surprise! The economy is cratering thanks to Trump’s erratic behavior and punitive, bullying foreign policy and deference to Putin. 56% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy.

“As markets slide and investors worry in response to Trump’s trade policies, a 56% majority of the public disapproves of his handling of the economy, worse than at any point during his first term in office,” CNN reported.

“Some pundits say he won the election because of his performance on the economy. If now 56% of the people disapprove, he's not in very good electoral shape, now or in the future,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) commented in floor remarks on Trump’s “erratic” decisions.

“This week, forecasters say that thanks to Donald Trump’s chaos and tariffs, the odds of a dreaded recession have started to crawl up. One J.P. Morgan report puts it, alarmingly, at 40%. There was little chance of recession the day he took office, now it's up to 40% according to J.P. Morgan,” Schumer added.

Former President Joe Biden (who the media gossiped might have dementia or maybe Parkinson’s — while they ignored that he was an exceptionally effective and competent president) handed Donald Trump “the best economy to an incoming president since at least the 2001 handoff from Clinton to Bush II. In his last quarter in office, GDP grew at a 2.3 percent annual rate (final demand, which excludes inventory fluctuations, grew at a 3.2 percent rate). That brought the average growth rate for Biden’s presidency to 3.2 percent, the highest since Clinton’s second term.”

I remember like it was yesterday a New York Times economic reporter snarkily saying it wasn’t his job to inform voters of Biden’s economic policies. That is the President’s job, he told readers. Which begs the question, if readers are supposed to just take the president at his or her word about their policies, what point is there to an economics reporter? Economic pundits and analysts would be needed, but not a reporter.

But yeah, that’s how we got here and it only took two months of living with Donald Trump again for the nation to remember why they tossed him aside with such haste in 2020.

I’d argue that if our media had been doing their job properly, they would have not just reported how voters feel about who can handle the economy better, but would have delved into how Joe Biden somehow protected the U.S. from the economic pain from which every other developed nation is still reeling post-pandemic. Gee, that seems like something that might matter to people.

But here we are. People are waking up, no thanks to the media, which is now feasting on the $$$/attention of those who can’t manage to not obsess over every comment this president makes. He is their favorite clown. He makes them money. He disrupts the economy, he puts people in danger, he puts lives in danger, he puts the country in danger, but he makes them money and that is the most important thing he can do. So.

Now we will all live with the Trumpcession and have to hear about how suddenly Americans don’t trust him with the economy. Let no one forget that Trump had already undermined the economy in his first term BEFORE covid hit.

None of this is new, and certainly Trump gave no indication during the campaign that he would be a steady, competent executive. He ran on telling lies about Haitian immigrants in Ohio eating cats and dogs. He ran on the martyr drama of wearing what appeared to be a mini-menstrual pad on his ear to the RNC after the first assassination attempt (this was so cringey that even his hardcore supporters told me he was a drama queen). He most certainly did not run on policies other than helping the rich.

The media said Trump won the first debate, and by the standards we judge these things now he did, but he lied his way through it and blustered his way through it, while Biden discussed actual policy. Until we change what the media and we demand of a president, this won’t change. We should want a grown-up who can actually discuss the issues.

Instead, we got a Temu Raggedy Reagan reality TV show star who is hawking Cybertrucks on the White House drive. And he is as horrible with the economy as one would expect from someone who seeks most of all to please Daddy Putin.

What do you think? Are more Americans catching on to Trump? Share your thoughts in the comments below.