President Donald Trump told NBC News in an interview released Wednesday that despite the failures of his administration—killing civilians, rising costs—he doesn’t know why his approval ratings continue to fall.
Trump gave an interview to NBC’s Tom Llamas as part of the upcoming Super Bowl broadcast. Llamas asked Trump to explain why most Americans don’t support how he has handled immigration, which used to be one of his strongest issues.
“I don’t believe the polls,” Trump initially said, and argued that “I should be at 100%” in polls since “everybody” understands the border is closed, though it wasn’t open under former President Joe Biden, despite years of right-wing disinformation to the contrary.
Trump then claimed, “I could show you polls where I’m polling at 69% popularity.” Trump’s highest average approval rating in his second term is 52% and that was on Inauguration Day. His approval has steadily declined since then and is currently at 41%.
Trump then asserted “I’m starting to get great polls on the economy,” which is a lie. Llamas pointed out that Trump’s numbers are bad on the economy and when asked why that is the case, Trump responded, “I don’t know, I don’t know.”
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Trump’s ratings on handling the economy are low because his decision to institute tariffs on goods has increased costs for millions of Americans. Trump claimed during the campaign that increasing tariffs would push other countries to give in to his demands but in reality, prices have gone up and our closest trading partners (like Canada) are turning to other nations, especially China.
Trump is also losing serious ground on immigration because the execution of his mass deportation plan has been a disaster. Federal agents from ICE and the Border Patrol are harassing and even killing innocent American citizens, and when they’re not doing that, they’re kidnapping children. Those aren’t activities that the average person is going to approve of.
Most Americans also like freedom of speech, particularly since it is a constitutionally protected right. But the Trump administration is using the power of the federal government to attack speech it disagrees with. That has taken the form of the FCC going after late-night comedians and the Department of Justice arresting journalists.
There are early signs that voters are prepared to punish Republicans for the last year of failure on multiple fronts in this year’s midterm elections. Trump’s comments show that as leader of the party, instead of understanding what is wrong, he continues to hold on to a fantasy world where everyone approves of his actions.
When Trump says “I don’t know” why Americans don’t like him, he’s one of the few people in the country who doesn’t get it.
