The video version of this podcast is available to paid subscribers here.
Americans have had a lot to digest politically and economically over the past couple weeks. Trump’s volatile approach to tariffs began basically as soon as he took office, with Canada and Mexico being the first targets, but so-called “Liberation Day” marked the start of something akin to full blown chaos.
At first, everyone was getting tariffed big time, then just 10 percent across the board, except for China, which got a 34 percent tariff, no wait, a 104 percent tariff, actually a 145 percent tariff, but consumer electronics were exempted, but wait, maybe not.
The markets have plunged and rebounded some and plunged again and rebounded some more. As of the time of recording this podcast, the S&P 500 was still down about 12 percent from its peak.
So how are Americans digesting all of this? If you look at Trump’s average approval rating he’s somewhere around net -5. But this has all been so fast-moving that those numbers may already be outdated. If you only compare polls from before and after Liberation Day, it looks like he's dropped about 7 whole percentage points on net in just that time. And the majority of Americans have gone from tepidly supporting tariffs during the campaign last year, to outright rejecting them.
It’s one of those times when you want as up-to-date data as possible, and lucky for us, our guest had just that. Kristen Soltis Anderson is a longtime friend of the pod. She’s the founder of Echelon Insights, which works with Republican campaigns and is a contributor to the New York Times and CNN. Her latest verrified voter survey came out of the field this morning, and shows some concerning signs for Republicans on the economy.
Share this post