JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
A new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll out today shows Americans are largely opposed to the Trump administration's actions on everything from immigration enforcement to the economy and foreign policy. It's the latest of multiple polls that show similar results, putting President Trump and Republicans in a risky position for a midterm year. NPR senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro is here in the studio to tell us about the results. Hi.
DOMENICO MONTANARO, BYLINE: Hey. Great to be with you.
SUMMERS: Great to talk with you. Domenico, tell us, how bad exactly are these numbers for President Trump?
MONTANARO: Well, just 39% say they approve of the job that Trump's doing overall, and it's been below 40% in our poll since November. I mean, just 36% approve of how he's handling foreign policy and the economy. It's a really difficult spot for any president.
8And what really jumps out here, though, 51% say they strongly disapprove of the job that Trump is doing. That's tied for the worst score in the decade that Marist has been asking about strong approval and disapproval. The last time it was this high or this bad for Trump was in the days after the January 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
SUMMERS: And obviously, we've all seen the headlines dominated by immigration enforcement as well as the two U.S. citizens who were killed at the hands of federal agents. Do we know how much that might contribute to these numbers?
MONTANARO: Yeah. I mean, it's obviously a big piece of this. Two-thirds in our survey say ICE has gone too far, which has jumped 11 points since last summer. But think about, you know, what's happened this past month. In addition to immigration enforcement, Trump unilaterally, without consulting Congress, had the military go into Venezuela and remove that country's president, Nicolás Maduro, from power. And he continually - Trump made threats about taking over Greenland - all of that very unpopular in our survey and lots of other surveys that we've seen as well.
We saw a pretty clear political pattern emerge in this poll. Democrats and independents, heavily against all of those Trump moves. Only 30%, for example, of independents approve of the job that Trump's doing. Republicans, on the other hand, steadfastly sticking with him.
SUMMERS: I'm going to focus on independents for a second. They were key to President Trump's reelection. So what does it mean for the president and his Republican Party to have independents seemingly sliding away from?
MONTANARO: They're very important in swing districts, given how locked in members of both parties are. But Latinos and voters under 30 also voted for him in substantial numbers and were really big, important reasons for why he won, but he and his policies are really unpopular with them as well. So his voting coalition has really frayed here.
Despite all that, we continue to see Republicans standing by Trump. Like I said, 85% of them approve of the job he's doing. Three-quarters of Republicans think ICE is making America safer. Even nearly 7 in 10 are in favor of taking over Greenland. And just to underscore, Republicans are the outlier here. It's really the opposite of what everyone else in the survey was telling us.
SUMMERS: OK. Dig into that a little bit. What is going on there?
MONTANARO: I asked our pollster from Marist, Lee Miringoff, about that, actually, and here's what he had to say.
LEE MIRINGOFF: For those who are always thinking that, ah, this, you know, situation is really going to break loose the Republicans, his base is crumbling - reports of that tend to be overexaggerated based on very, very skimpy evidence.
MONTANARO: Yeah. Lee thinks that what could move them is if Trump follows through on some of these big threats against Canada or moving into Greenland or if he doesn't back off of tariffs and prices skyrocket. You know, I guess that's possible, but we have to remember that it's a pretty high bar to move any of these voters. I mean, the economy was really never the reason Trump won in the first place. This really goes much deeper.
I also spoke to Christopher Sebastian Parker. He's a political science professor at UC Santa Barbara. He's the author of a book about the Tea Party, "Change They Can't Believe In." He went so far as to call Trump a, quote, "messianic figure" for many on the right who are upset over demographic change that's happening in the country.
CHRISTOPHER SEBASTIAN PARKER: This is more about cultural - it's a perception of cultural threat. It's about him being the last thing standing between them and the rest of us. That's what this is about.
MONTANARO: Yeah. It's been pretty clear for those of us who followed conservatives and the conservative movement leading up to Trump for a long time that it's always overwhelmingly been about culture.
SUMMERS: Last thing, Domenico, what does this mean short term with the midterm elections coming up?
MONTANARO: Yeah, Republicans are in a real bind. When Trump's not on the ballot, they have a hard time turning out conservatives. And with independents and Latinos being this heavily against Trump's policies right now, it puts them in a perilous position.
SUMMERS: NPR's Domenico Montanaro, thanks so much.
MONTANARO: You got it. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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