Trump's economic approval ratings look Biden-esque

Politico

4 days ago

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Quick Fix
Voters took a very dim view of President Joe Biden's handling of the economy. Now, President Donald Trump's economic approval ratings are starting to resemble those of his predecessor.
Recent polls taken by Gallup and Fox News had the president's economic stewardship underwater by 24 percentage points and 11 points, respectively. The latest survey from Reuters-Ipsos found that just 35 percent of voters approve of his economic agenda — in line with the mid-to-low 30s notched by Biden during the back half of his presidency. A WSJ survey released over the weekend found that the majority of voters hold negative opinions of Trump's 'big, beautiful bill.' And as noted in a recent poll conducted by Emerson College, support for the administration's signature legislative achievement is similar to what Biden drummed up for the 'Build Back Better' agenda.
'What I see in the economic numbers is frustration that Trump's not bringing down costs — and doesn't seem that focused on bringing down costs,' said Bharat Ramamurti, who was a deputy director of the National Economic Council under Biden.
Trump's weak polling should concern the White House for several reasons. For one, voters held generally favorable views of Trump's economic policies for most of his first term. That was a critical advantage for him during the 2024 campaign. Furthermore, negative perceptions of his agenda are persisting even though recession and reinflation fears have eased since he began scaling back his 'Liberation Day' tariff regime. (A closely watched consumer confidence index will be released by the Conference Board at 10 this morning.)
As alums of the Biden and Obama administrations can attest, it's hard to sway voters on the economy even when the data is trending in the right direction. If growth, inflation or the labor market worsen, Trump will have to address those weaknesses to an electorate that's already unsatisfied with his performance.
'He has not been able to prosecute a case that he is fighting effectively on the economy in the [same] way that he was able to in the first term,' said Daniel Hornung, who was also a former deputy on Biden's NEC. 'As we saw – pretty convincingly — over the course of the long recovery from the financial crisis, people don't have fond views of a slow-growing economy.'
In a statement, White House spokesman Kush Desai said, 'the Fake News spent months ginning up paranoia and fear about how President Trump's tariffs would fuel inflation and spark an all-out inflation. The opposite has happened.'
New tariffs and trade deals have boosted revenue and opened up markets for American businesses, he added, and 'the best is yet to come as the Administration's pro-growth agenda of deregulation, The One Big Beautiful Bill's tax cuts, and new trade deals continue to take effect.'
Nevertheless, most mainstream economists assume that growth and employment will slow in the latter half of the year. And there's still an expectation that prices will rise as new tariffs take effect — including the new 15 percent levies that will be applied to European and Japanese imports.
'When you look forward, I think that's where things really get scary,' said Wayne Winegarden, an economist at the free market think tank Pacific Research Institute. 'This is a huge, huge tax increase on the economy. It's a huge kind of reducing the efficiency of the U.S. economy.'
One final thought: In politics, you only have to do better than your competition. While The WSJ's poll had Trump's approval rating underwater, it also found that congressional Republicans hold sizable leads over Democrats on both the economy and inflation.
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Driving the day
The Census Bureau will release June data on the trade balance of goods, retail inventories and wholesale inventories at 8:30 a.m. … The Conference Board will release its consumer confidence survey at 10 a.m. … The Labor Department will release its June report on job openings and turnover at 10 a.m. … Senate Banking holds a markup of the 'ROAD to Housing Act of 2025' at 10 a.m. …
Horrifying — Bloomberg's Myles Miller and Dawn Lim: 'An armed shooter attacked 345 Park Ave. in Manhattan, the tower housing Blackstone Inc.'s global headquarters and the National Football League among others, killing at least five people, according to a city official. The suspected shooter is dead, three officials said. Victims include at least one police officer. At least two other people died at the tower.'
Vought's thoughts on Powell — In an interview with Newsmax, White House budget director Russ Vought said his investigation into the Federal Reserve's headquarters renovation hasn't concluded. Per Newsmax's James Rosen: 'Asked point blank if he and Trump regard the chair as 'an honest man,' Vought replied: 'I think that's a question that needs to be borne out by the review of the facts and what we find... We heard what he said in committee. We've seen his response to our letter. We're not there yet in terms of his response being the end of the query.''
Seems like a big deal — European Union officials told Gregorio Sorgi that Brussels won't be able to enforce a provision of the new trade framework that calls for $600 billion of investment in the U.S. economy. 'This part of the deal is largely performative,' said Nils Redeker from the Jacques Delors Centre think tank. '[The EU] is not China, right? So nobody can tell private companies how much they invest in the U.S.'
— Speaking of China, per Ari Hawkins: A three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of International Trade rejected a request to restore a tariff exemption for low-value imports from China.
At the regulators
Well, Declan's evening freed up — The White House asked the Senate Agriculture Committee to delay a vote on Brian Quintenz's nomination to chair the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, Declan Harty reports.
The future of independent agencies — Michael Stratford — back on the prudential beat after some paternity leave — reports that a federal appeals court temporarily paused a lower court's reinstatement of two Democratic appointees on the board of the federal credit union regulator who had been fired by Trump earlier this year.
Move along — U.S. District Judge Sparkle Sooknanan ordered the Department of Housing and Urban Development to comply with its statutory obligations and create a detailed plan to administer fair housing program grants that the agency is accused of withholding, Katherine Hapgood reports.
On The Hill
INNOVATE Act 2.0 — Senate Small Business Chair Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and House Small Business Chair Roger Williams (R-Texas) partnered on an updated version of the INNOVATE Act on Friday that would reauthorize and make changes to small business innovation and technology programs, Katherine reports.
The bill would create an enforceable foreign-ties due diligence standard across the federal government to safeguard intellectual property from Chinese Communist Party industrial espionage and prioritizes investment in technologies of the future.
The Economy
The new 'synergies' — CEOs are bragging about reducing headcount. A cooling labor market, attrition and artificial intelligence are helping major companies like Amazon, Bank of America and Wells Fargo slash their workforces, writes Chip Cutter in The WSJ.
On the AI front — The Economist reports on the new strategies tech companies are deploying to meet the growing energy needs of AI data centers.
*Eyebrow raised* — The New Yorker's Eyal Press: 'Trump's 'populist' [no tax on tips] policy is backed by the National Restaurant Association—probably because it won't stop establishments from paying servers below the minimum wage.'
Jobs report
Pravina Raghavan, most recently the former CDFI Fund Director, joins Locus, a CDFI, as its new CEO.
Gina Metrakas joins Capital One as the Head of Federal Advocacy, She most recently served as Chief of Staff to the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development and was previously HUD's COO.