Name: 'Historically bad': Harry Enten on Trump's new polling numbers
Uploaded: 2026-01-21T02:58:51.000Z
Duration: 10 min 11 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Adverbs of degree

All right, we're talking about these brand new CNN polling numbers out just today on the president's approval rating, which is low just 39%.

Inside this poll, there are some rather notable shifts, in some cases, some historic metrics.

With us now, CNN chief data analyst Harry Entten.

Harry, we talked about voters saying that the president's term so far is a female failure, but

It turns out that love or presidencies are not better the second time around, according to the American people, because what are we talking about here?

You know, back In April of 2024, when it came to term, number one, the majority of Americans said that Donald Trump's first term in office was a success, 55%.

That's a big reason why he was able to get a second term in office.

They look back fondly upon his first term in office.

But now come to this side of the screen now, after term two, year one, how do Americans view it?

These numbers look a lot more like what it did about six months into Trump's term, number one, than it did looking back upon the entirety of Trump's term, number one, which of course gave him that second term in office.

The clear majority, 58%, nearly three in five Americans, say it is a failure.

Okay, so this number, 58%, saying it's a failure one year into a second term.

Now, this is a little bit difficult, right, because Trump has said two presidencies.

Other people who are, say, a year in a term, number two, in fact, have had a continuous term.

But we're going to try and do it for you right here, which is essentially, okay, term or terms have been a failure about a year in a term that.

You see this for Donald Trump right here, 58% term number two, first year, 58% say failure.

George W. Bush, 52% said his presidency had been a failure about a year into term number two.

Bush after Katrina, after a long period in the Iraq War.

And this is really, really bad when you compare it to George W. Bush.

Barack Obama was 48%, and then Bill Clinton way down here at 26%.

But the bottom line is this about a year into term number two, Trump's numbers look worse than any other president in which either CNN or the Pew Research center has asked this question.

Joe Biden, if you look here, was at 57% failure in term one.

But he's even doing a point worse, though, within the margin of error.

So historically bad for presidents in their second term here.

So what do people think it will be like when they look back at the secondary?

So, you know, we're talking about this, and

we're talking about 58% who say that Trump is a failure a year into term number two.

But I think the other thing that is so important is Trump wants to make his mark in history, Right?

He wants to fundamentally change the United States of America.

Well, on this metric, get this, Trump's second term will fundamentally change the US and the changes will remain well beyond his presidency.

A majority of Americans said he'd fundamentally change the United States.

Now it's just 41% of Americans who say that term number two will, in fact, fundamentally change the United States.

So it's not just that the American people see term number two as a failure.

They also don't think that Trump is making changes that will fundamentally change the United States and last, well beyond.

Not just the numbers right here, right now, but

what people see into the future and how people view everything.

Didn't know where you were going there, Harry.

You can look at this 41% a few different ways.

They're very interesting, though, to think of what that means.

It is day 361 of President Trump's second term, and

we've got a brand new CNN poll about President Trump's first year back in office.

As our political director David Chalian said this morning, you really have to squint hard to find even a small piece of good news for the President.

In this poll, a majority of the country, 58%, say President Trump's first year has been a failure.

That includes two thirds of independent voters.

Across the board, Americans disapprove of how the President is handling every major issue.

He's at 39% on the economy, 42% on immigration.

Those are two of the biggest reasons that voters say they sent him back to the White House.

The economy is far and away Americans top concern and has been for years.

Right now, two thirds of voters say the president is focused on the wrong things.

And maybe even more importantly, two thirds say they don't think he cares about people like them.

And whether the White House can reverse these trend lines can be and will be critical in November.

I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters today on this Friday.

What I find most fascinating about the numbers is one, in the first year, this administration did an extraordinary amount of things and did so many of them through executive authority, unilateral action, pushing the boundaries of that authority to levels that we hadn't seen before.

And in large part, they were things that the president actually campaigned on and said he was going to do.

And I think the disconnect, at least based on the numbers we're looking at right now and from our reporting out in the field, is voters are saying we didn't really vote for that.

We cared about prices, we cared about affordability and we cared about immigration in the broad sense, not necessarily in the what we're seeing in the interior in the viral video sense right now.

And that has been, you know, you had a group of advisers and a president who were emboldened by an electoral victory that was without question and believe that they had a mandate.

They are utilizing that mandate or pushing that mandate to a degree.

We've seen this in the past with other administrations to a degree that maybe voters aren't entirely comfortable with and at least certainly aren't right now based on the numbers we're seeing.

And Nia, let's look at the trend line here on overall and then on those two big issues that we were talking about.

First of all, overall, the president came in February was the first time that CNN polled at 48% overall approval rating, which was a record high for him.

And then you see the overall go down to where it is at 39% now, the economy just starting in March, you can see that go down and immigration also go down.

I mean, obviously, as we've said, the economy in this poll and just, just understanding the world that we're living in is clearly the number one issue.

But the fact that immigration has gone down like that for the president, who has a sort of a calling card on closing the border and people are not looking south, or maybe a little bit north.

They're looking in the interior on, on immigration, and obviously the economy is hurting him.