THE MONTH
Donald Trump has kept the news wires humming this month of
May with all sorts of truly astonishing and unexpected madness, the latest
being his presidential pardon power play.
Trump first pardoned a conservative author and commentator, and then floated
trial balloons on similar treatment for Rod Blagojevich and Martha
Stewart. While it is easy to make fun of
Trump potentially pardoning the two former “Celebrity Apprentice” guests and
dismiss this as yet another sideshow aimed at distraction, there are serious
issues at play. Specifically, the pardon
talk is a clear signal to Michael Flynn, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and Michael
Cohen that they need not fear the arm of the law. And more broadly, Trump is thumbing his nose
at what he considers “unfair” prosecutions by the “deep state,” further
delegitimizing his own presumed guilt and thereby softening whatever it is that
Mueller concludes.
The two main stories of the month reflect the full
unleashing of Trump. Those two stories
are, of course, the on again/off again/on again North Korea summit (and the
related trade negotiations with China), and the full frontal attack on the
Mueller investigation being led by Rudy Giuliani (of which the pardon pitch is
a subset).
Was it only this same month that the genial (and
cooperative) Ty Cobb bid farewell, opening the door for Giuliani? And faster than you can say “Scaramucci,” the
camera-friendly, erstwhile “America’s Mayor” almost talked his way out of his
new gig, managing to (among other miscues) upend Trump’s Stormy Daniels storyline
by outing his own client, revealing Trump’s direct involvement in the nefarious
$130,000 payment to Trump’s porn star paramour.
But Giuliani (unlike Scaramucci) survived his early string
of gaffes, and now, with a full month under his belt, has learned his lines
(that is, he’s learned to repeat Trump’s lines, word for word) and hit his
stride. Giuliani is not, of course,
making legal arguments on his
sweeping tour of conservative media outlets – his is purely and simply a PR offensive to discredit the Mueller
investigation. Giuliani is going straight
to the end game – as he freely admits in commenting on his strategy: “It
is for public opinion. Because
eventually the decision here is going to be impeach or not impeach. Members of
Congress, Democrats and Republicans, are going to be informed a lot
by their constituents. And so our jury – and it should be – is the American
people.”
With the affable,
if-you-are-innocent-then-cooperate Cobb tossed aside, Trump is now free to
follow his instincts, with his own hired henchman (Giuliani) in place to lay
waste to American institutions, doing whatever it takes to protect him. Perhaps we should not be surprised if, soon,
Trump names Roseanne Barr to replace Hope Hicks as White House Communications
Director. (At the very least, Barr may go
the route of becoming a Fox regular and join the motley crew of Trump nighttime
phone call confidents.)
As emboldened as Trump has
become with respect to his own defense, his attempts to reshape the world have
been, depending on your perspective, even bolder or more reckless. Trump exited the Iran deal, moved our Israeli
embassy to Jerusalem, and carried on a trade war with China – all in this
month. In the wake of the Iran deal, Israel
and Iran exchanged bombs on positions held by the other; as Javanka opened the
doors of the new embassy, 58 Palestinians were being gunned down in Gaza; whatever flicker of a chance Middle East peace
prospects might have had was extinguished; and talks to avoid the trade war
with China fizzled as the Chinese played their hand beautifully, promising
nothing painful for them, a performance so weak that Trump was forced to take
Steve Mnuchin off the case and replace him with the previously-sidelined Wilbur
Ross.
These are the ongoing aftershocks
of policies born on the fly to score cheap political points, rather than real geo-political
gains, guided by neither informed, expert inputs nor proper six-moves-ahead-chess-playing
about how it all might play out. The
potential for unintended consequences of Trump’s “instincts” in the coming
decade is utterly terrifying.
Which, of course, brings us
to North Korea. Kim Jong-un, motivated
by success in the development of his nuclear program and his thirst for the
recognition of North Korea as a major power (it ranks 47th in the
world in population, right behind Mozambique), works on a peace offering with
the new South Korean President Moon, who is equally motivated by peace on the
peninsula. This is a gift to Trump, who
can claim that his tough talk and unconventional style has resulted in unexpected
progress on issues that have vexed the world diplomatic community (and his
predecessors) for nearly seven decades.
Far from showing the kind of
restraint expected in such a situation, or flexing U.S. muscles properly, Trump
rushes into a summit without a strategic goal in mind nor the necessary
pre-summit dialogue to achieve one, a process that typically takes many months
of quiet, difficult negotiations by seasoned professionals to pull off. On cue, the predictably unpredictable Kim
Jong-un stuck a stick in the spinning bicycle wheel and it sent the summit prospects
flying. Trump then canceled the summit
because he was afraid Kim would cancel it first,
then he almost immediately sought to restore it because he senses that he can
spin any meeting into a “win” for
him. And so the summit must go on, on
June 12, come hell or high water. As if
postponing it a month or two to recalibrate somehow betrays “weakness.”
On this one, the date’s the
thing, and it certainly uncovers the conscience of our king.
THE NUMBERS
Trump’s approval rating for
the month of May blipped upward by three points to 45%, clearly driven by the
apparent progress in Korean peninsula peace prospects. This represents the highest level of the
Trump presidency since his first weeks in office, though it remains the lowest
of any president at this stage of his presidency; Trump has held that
distinction for every single month since taking office. He has yet to crack the 50% mark, and, despite
the uptick, Trump (and the GOP) remain poorly positioned for the mid-terms.
TRUMP MONTHLY APPROVAL RATING
|
|||||||
2017
|
2018
|
||||||
Jan
|
Jul - 6 mo
|
Jan - 1 yr.
|
Feb
|
Mar
|
Apr
|
May
|
|
Approve
|
48
|
40
|
42
|
43
|
42
|
42
|
45
|
Disapprove
|
46
|
56
|
55
|
54
|
54
|
54
|
52
|
Net
|
2
|
-16
|
-13
|
-11
|
-13
|
-12
|
-7
|
The generic ballot for March has
the Democratic lead narrowing to +4 points, also the closest it has been since
the early days of the Trump administration.
While this would normally be considered a solid edge for the Democrats,
it has been halved since its peak last fall.
Using our proprietary BTRTN regression model, this lead would suggest a
36-seat pick-up for the Dems in November (if it held). This is too close for comfort for the Dems,
given the vagaries of gerrymandering. We
consider the Dems modest favorites at this point to retake control of the House.
GENERIC BALLOT: MONTHLY
FOR LAST 12 MONTHS
|
||||||||||||
2017
|
2018
|
|||||||||||
Jun
|
Jul
|
A
|
S
|
O
|
N
|
D
|
J
|
F
|
Mar
|
A
|
May
|
|
Dem
|
40
|
39
|
40
|
40
|
39
|
40
|
41
|
40
|
40
|
41
|
43
|
41
|
GOP
|
36
|
34
|
34
|
34
|
32
|
32
|
32
|
34
|
34
|
34
|
36
|
37
|
Diff
|
4
|
5
|
6
|
6
|
7
|
8
|
8
|
6
|
6
|
7
|
7
|
4
|
The “Trumpometer” remained at +7 in the last month. There
is a dynamic going on that will be interesting to watch – the unemployment rate
continues to drop, while household income growth (not a Trumpometer data point
but important nonetheless) remains tepid.
The stock market had flattened off, while gas prices are soaring. The average American certainly feels the pain
of the latter more than the gain of the former.
Consumer confidence, however, remains high; yet GDP growth at 2.2% is well
short of Trump promises and in line with the average of Obama’s years in office
excluding 2009. The +7 Trumpometer reading
means that, on average, our five economic measures are 7% higher than they were
at the time of Trump’s Inauguration.
TRUMPOMETER
|
End
Clinton 1/20/2001
|
End
Bush 1/20/2009
|
End
Obama 1/20/2017 (Base = 0)
|
Trump 4/30/2018
|
Trump 5/31/2018
|
% Chg. Vs. Inaug. (+ = Better)
|
25
|
-53
|
0
|
7
|
7
|
7%
|
|
Unemployment Rate
|
4.2
|
7.8
|
4.7
|
4.1
|
3.8
|
19%
|
Consumer Confidence
|
129
|
38
|
114
|
129
|
128
|
13%
|
Price of Gas
|
1.27
|
1.84
|
2.44
|
2.96
|
3.04
|
-25%
|
Dow Jones
|
10,588
|
8,281
|
19,732
|
24,163
|
24,416
|
24%
|
GDP
|
4.5
|
-6.2
|
2.1
|
2.3
|
2.2
|
5%
|
Notes
on methodology:
BTRTN calculates our
monthly approval ratings using an average of the four pollsters who conduct
daily or weekly approval rating polls: Gallup Rasmussen, Reuters/Ipsos and You
Gov/Economist. This provides consistent and accurate trending information and
does not muddy the waters by including infrequent pollsters. The outcome tends to mirror the RCP average
but, we believe, our method gives more precise trending.
For
the generic ballot, we take an average of the only two pollsters who conduct
weekly generic ballot polls, Reuters/Ipsos and You Gov/Economist, again for
trending consistency.
The Trumpometer aggregates a set of
economic indicators and compares the resulting index to that same set of
aggregated indicators at the time of the Trump Inaugural on January 20, 2017,
on an average percentage change basis... The basic idea is to demonstrate
whether the country is better off economically now versus when Trump took
office. The indicators are the unemployment rate, the Dow-Jones
Industrial Average, the Consumer Confidence Index, the price of gasoline, and
the GDP.
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