Donald Trump's Helsinki sell out to Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to have been an inflection point of sorts. Some congressional Republicans are actually starting to openly break with Trump on issues ranging from Russia and the FBI's FISA warrant to monitor Carter Page to Trump’s threat of revoking the security clearances of his critics and a newly announced $12 billion payoff to farmers being hit by his disastrous trade war with the world.
Even if Republican lawmakers can't be counted on to actually put any action behind their words, the amount of GOP noise emanating from the Hill is unusual. Perhaps Republicans are seeing trends in their internal polling similar to those in a public Quinnipiac poll conducted after the Trump-Putin summit last week. Overall, voters say the meeting was a failure for the U.S. by a whopping 52-27 percent, but a success for Russia by 73-8 percent. Here's some other Trump low lights from the poll:
- A majority of voters—51 percent—believe "the Russian government has compromising information" on Trump
- 68 percent of American voters are "very concerned" or "somewhat concerned" about Trump's relationship with Russia
- A majority of voters say Trump was not acting in the best interest of the U.S., 54 – 41 percent
- Voters believe Mueller is conducting a fair investigation 55-31 percent
- Voters overwhelming trust U.S. intelligence agencies to tell them the truth over Trump, 63 to 25 percent
- Voters disapprove of how Trump is handling foreign policy by 58-38 percent
- Overall, Trump’s approval rating is 20 points underwater, 38-58 percent‚ a distinct downward turn from his 43-52 percent rating in last month's Q poll following the North Korea summit.
Sure, it's one poll. But Civiqs polling also shows independents hardening against Trump over the course of July, with Helsinki helping to reignite the trend.
The post-Helsinki fallout has apparently been nettlesome enough to Trump for him to label it all "fake news" Tuesday during his speech in Kansas City, Missouri, to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, a nonpartisan group that invites the sitting president to address its members annually.
"Don't believe the crap you see from these people—the fake news," Trump told the crowd. "What you're seeing and what you're reading is not what's happening."
What you’re seeing and hearing isn’t really happening, folks, or so says the Gaslighter In Chief. November really will be a test of whether a politician can gaslight his way out of the corner he's backed himself into. And while Trump continues to enjoy high approval ratings among Republican voters, it's a party that's shrinking (dropping from 29 to 26 percent in 2017 per Pew Research) while independent voters simultaneously grow increasingly disenchanted with it.