CNN’s polling director Jennifer Agiesta:
Following a tumultuous transition period, approval ratings for Trump's handling of the transition are more than 20 points below those for any of his three most recent predecessors. Obama took the oath in 2009 with an 84% approval rating, 67% approved of Clinton's transition as of late December 1992 and 61% approved of George W. Bush's transition just before he took office in January 2001. [...]
Across all three of these measures, Americans' impressions of Trump have worsened since November. In that time, disapproval of his handling of the transition has climbed seven points to 52%, the percentage who think he'll do a good job has dropped five points, and the share saying they have lost confidence in Trump's ability to be president grew 10 points.
Gary Langer at ABC News:
Donald Trump enters office as the most unpopular of at least the last seven newly elected presidents, a new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds, with ratings for handling the transition that are also vastly below those of his predecessors.
Forty percent of Americans in the national survey approve of the way Trump has handled the transition, half as many as the 80 percent who approved of Barack Obama’s preparations to take office. Trump also far trails George W. Bush (72 percent transition approval), Bill Clinton (81 percent) and George H.W. Bush (82 percent) on this measure.
Similarly, just 40 percent in this poll, produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates, approve of most of Trump’s cabinet choices -- trailing his four predecessors by anywhere from 19 to 26 percentage points.
Olivia Nuzzi at The Daily Beast dives into the the inauguration:
Of all the painful tasks Trump loyalists have taken on over the 19 months of his meteoric political rise, Epshteyn’s is by far the strangest: to explain why it’s no big deal that the country’s first celebrity president—a man preoccupied by Hollywood, obsessed with movies, with talent, with glitz—will enter office in the least star-studded inauguration in recent memory. Hell, even George W. Bush managed to get Ricky Martin to saunter down the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, crooning “Do you really want it?”
But fear not, for Epshteyn has a compelling series of alternate-universe talking points at his disposal, intended to convince you that no, Trump really does not want it. And luckily for the soon-to-be POTUS, Epshteyn is as skilled a spin master as Trump could ever want after his campaign stint as a “senior adviser” and frequent TV pundit trained him, through trial and error, to hardly ever veer off a script of platitudes that make “Make America Great Again!” sound specific.
Asawin Suebsaeng points out that even pro-Trump celebrities are ditching the inauguration:
The president-elect has reportedly been “very unhappy” about his and his team’s inability to lure A-list and Hollywood talent to his inauguration in Washington, D.C., later this month—even as he insists this fact doesn’t bug him at all. [...]
The pool of laudable pro-Trump celebs is pretty shallow—and it’s getting to the point where even some key pro-Trump celebrities are ditching the inauguration.
“Historic and wonderful as it is, I’d rather cut my own liver out with a butter knife [than go],” conservative columnist Ann Coulter—who made the rounds in Hollywood pitching Trump’s case early last year—told The Daily Beast. “I’ll watch on TV and celebrate with Trumpsters in [New York City] (which Trump would, too, if he could).” [...] Furthermore, Caitlyn Jenner is reportedly preparing to head to Washington, D.C., but hasn’t confirmed yet. Representatives for Ted Nugent, Kid Rock, and Sylvester Stallone wouldn’t comment. Hell, even Scott Baio won’t even say one way or the other right now.
Here’s Dana Milbank’s take on Trump not earning respect:
To Trump’s many self-assigned superlatives, he can now add another: the sorest winner. With charity for none and with malice toward all but his supporters, he has in the past two months set a new standard for gracelessness in victory.
The losers often have hard feelings after elections. But this much enmity from the winner is extraordinary. Trump, after his election-night promise to “bind the wounds of division” and be a “president for all Americans,” never attempted reconciliation. A day later, he falsely condemned “professional protesters, incited by the media,” and at year end he taunted opponents via Twitter: “Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love!”
This explains Trump’s short honeymoon. His favorability rating jumped from 34 percent during the campaign to 44 percent in late November in a Quinnipiac University poll as Americans gave their new leader the benefit of the doubt. But that same poll showed his favorability back down to 37 percent. Views about his honesty, leadership and ability to unite the country dropped similarly.
Switching topics, at The New York Times, a former insurance executive slams the GOP’s “health care death spiral”:
From my point of view as a former health insurance company chief executive, “total disaster” would also describe any Republican repeal-and-delay plan. Although my former colleagues in the insurance industry are too cowed by the president-elect to say so, Republican insistence on repeal without having a meaningful replacement at the same time will drive most insurers out of the individual market and leave the 10 percent of Americans now covered by some aspect of the A.C.A. without coverage — especially if Medicaid expansion is rolled back as well. [...]
Of course, the A.C.A. has a number of flaws, and repair is critical. But delay is not an option if the replacers really want to use private insurers to meet society’s goals of access, affordability and quality in health care. All known Republican alternatives envision heavy reliance on the same insurers that are now ready to bolt and leave a total mess rather than a defective but repairable market.
After they leave, the damage will spread to doctors and hospitals, whose bad debt will skyrocket when patients miss copays and drop coverage while providers and hospitals still must continue care.
Speaking of The New York Times, their editorial takes the GOP to task for its witch hunts and abuse of authority:
If the Republican-led House had a record of conducting judicious, purposeful investigations into wrongdoing, this authority might be justifiable. But the recent crusade against Planned Parenthood and the work of the Benghazi Committee — a costly yearslong exercise to malign former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that found nothing — have made clear that congressional investigators need greater constraints, not broader authority.
Representative Louise Slaughter of New York, the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee, called the set of measures disturbing and unconstitutional. It invites “a new era of political witch hunts,” she said, while it “muzzles the minority and gives staffers investigative powers that belong in the hands of members of Congress.”
And we end today’s roundup with this from Richard Cohen:
Whether he knows it or not, the specter of Lyndon Baines Johnson haunts Donald John Trump. There are some jarring similarities — two big, fleshy men given to vulgarities and gauche behavior, boastful, thin-skinned, politically amoral, vengeful, unforgiving and, most important, considered illegitimate presidents. For Johnson, that took some time to sink in; Trump is already there. [...]
By the end of the week, Trump will be the president. I wish him the best; I wish him the worst. The dilemma is how to separate loathing for him from love of country. I am leaving it to time to work that out. Meanwhile, Trump will have his moment, that’s for sure, but when things go wrong he will be chased from office — just like Johnson once was. The ancient Greeks knew why: A man’s character is his fate. In that case, Trump’s presidency is doomed.