Poll: Trump’s Approval Ratings Hits New Low, Harsh Treatment Of Staffers Unseen
Roughly a month into his administration as the nation’s 45th president, Donald Trump’s approval rating has dipped to a new low of lows a new Gallup poll finds.
The recently installed Republican commander-in-chief now has the support of just 40 percent of voters, compared to 55 percent who disapprove of the job he and his beleaguered cabinet have done thus far.
The negative 15-point spread is the highest recorded in the poll since Trump was officially sworn in as Barack Obama’s successor on Jan. 20.
Pollsters noted Trump and his entire administration have struggled mightily thus far in finding their footing, with the new president’s approval numbers perpetually hovering in the low 40s ever since he took office.
In that time, Trump has turned heads with some of his executive actions and stated policies, including a controversial ban on travelers from seven mostly-Muslim nations, which was later deemed unconstitutional by a federal court judge and upheld by an appeals court.
Not to be deterred, CNN reports Trump has openly berated the judge who rendered the decision and hinted at perhaps enacting new legislation on the matter.
Meanwhile, researchers indicated the new poll numbers point to growing dissatisfaction with the new president, with at least some of it stemming from a growing list of unpopular appointments with his cabinet.
Trump’s low and still falling poll numbers go against the grain of what’s generally expected of a new president. Former presidents Obama, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton all enjoyed approval ratings well over 50 percent in Gallup polls tracking the early popularity of their new administrations.
The three-day telephone poll is based on the opinions of 1,500 adults and has a margin of error of three points.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports Trump’s treatment of his senior staff is also seen as totally unprecedented in the way he is so willing to chastise many of them in open public.
Throughout history, whenever a president has had issues with a senior staffer, the matter is almost exclusively handled internally. With Trump, that’s proving to be not the case.
In the wake of the administration’s uneven start, Politico reports Trump recently conducted a review of his top staffers where he openly mused about the job done by press secretary Sean Spicer and that of since ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn.
More recently, there have been public rumblings about the White House future of chief of staff Reince Priebus, to the point some of Trump’s more trusted aides, at least for the moment, have started drafting a list of his possible replacements.
Longtime Trump pal and confidante Christopher Ruddy recently castigated Priebus in public as someone “in way over his head.”
Of the pushback Trump received over his ongoing crackdown on immigration, where hundreds were rounded up by ICE officials across the country to widely negative views, Ruddy added, “it’s my view that Reince is the problem.”
He added while on paper Priebus looks attractive enough, in the real world he suffers from a lack of knowledge about such key issues as how federal agencies and communications operations work.
“He botched this whole immigration rollout,” Ruddy added. “This should’ve been a win for Donald, not two or three weeks of negative publicity.”
What’s known is Trump won’t hesitate to pull the trigger in doing what it is he feels needs to be done.
The president is believed to keep a running list of which senior staffers are on his good side and which of them he likes best. The rankings are consistently updated based on such factors as TV hits or the last person he talked to.
[Featured Image by Alex Wong/Getty Images]
