New poll on Trump; Trump’s possession of a Nobel Peace Prize : NPR

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

We’ll turn now to senior contributor Ron Elving, of course, a longtime observer of national politics. Ron, thanks for being with us.

RON ELVING, BYLINE: Nice to be with you, Scott.

SIMON: I want to ask you: A new poll that just came out, about a year into Donald Trump’s presidency, finds that 58 percent of respondents think the first year of his second term has not been a success. Fifty-six percent consider the fatal shooting of Renée Good to be an inappropriate use of force, and less than a third say ICE operations have made American cities safer. What do you see in these results?

ELVING: There are plenty of warning signs ahead for a second-term sitting president facing a fall that will bring midterm congressional elections. And it’s not just CNN. The same message comes from other media and academic polls. The Associated Press works with people who compile a lot of public opinion data. Their latest poll shows some erosion, even among Republicans, on some issues. Immigration was his main issue all last year, but even that is underwater for him now. In this poll, only 38% approve of his handling of immigration since the latest ICE raids. But what is most striking is the disapproval of parts of Trump’s foreign policy. It’s rare to see a national survey question get a 60% negative response. But the idea of ​​taking Greenland by force is opposed by nearly 70% of Americans.

SIMON: And given those numbers, why do you think there’s virtually no change of course from the White House a year later?

ELVING: Some efforts have been made to vary the program, or even to really change course. The president changed tack on the issue of household affordability, saying it’s a subject to be taken seriously, proposing ways to lower housing prices. In response to other controversies, the president backed away from some of his threats. It has not yet hit Iran. He didn’t declare a state of emergency in Minnesota, as Kat just informed us. But I remember two three-word phrases that we heard a lot during Trump’s first term. One was to flood the area, and the other was to hear one of them. Flooding the zone meant that if there was bad news in the news, the best way to handle it was to blast it with a flurry of actions or statements that were sure to attract attention.

So whether the bad story is about the Epstein files or the battles over ICE, we’re suddenly seeing a lot of unexpected stories. We mentioned Greenland and tariffs, and now Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is under investigation. We mentioned that the governor of Minnesota and the mayor of Minneapolis are under investigation, possibly charged with obstruction, but there has yet to be an investigation into the ICE agent who shot an unarmed woman four times in that city. And as far as hearing one, it’s clear that many things are said and done in the White House and in this administration with one mind in mind.

SIMON: What signals are you seeing regarding this administration’s plans for Iran?

ELVING: Those plans aren’t entirely clear at this point, but the president sent an aircraft carrier battle group to the region and made a lot of noise, much like he did before the Venezuela incursion. By the end of the week, the president also backed off a bit on this point, after Iran withdrew its threats of mass executions of protesters. The number of deaths there is already in the thousands. But both the mullahs in Tehran and the president in Washington seem to have heard allies and partners in the Arab world and elsewhere, all trying to lower the tension, to prevent an American strike, one of the arguments being that such a strike would aggravate the situation without resolving it. And those pleas may have been heard and heard, at least for now.

SIMON: Finally, this week, Ron, what do you think of the Nobel Peace Prize that President Trump seemed to win this week?

ELVING: The Nobel Committee made it clear that the prize still belonged to María Corina Machado, but that they should not give it away. She presented the president with the medal that accompanied the award. It was surely a measure of his desire to please and appease the president and a measure of his willingness to sacrifice for his cause and, we might add, a measure of his skill in dealing with a certain public.

SIMON: NPR’s Ron Elving. As always, it’s a pleasure talking with you, my friend. We’ll talk later. Take care of yourself.

ELVING: Thank you, Scott.

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