Amy Walter: Comey Indictment, Troops In Portland Are Not Causing People To Change Their Minds About Trump
NPR’s Tamara Keith and Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report with Amy Walter join Amna Nawaz to discuss the latest political news, including the looming government shutdown and the indictment of former FBI Director James Comey.
AMNA NAWAZ, PBS NEWSHOUR: All right, well, let me ask you about what we have seen over the last few days, because we have seen some really extraordinary actions by the president I want to get some perspective on, publicly pressured his Department of Justice to prosecute his enemies and then his handpicked U.S. attorney secured indictment against James Comey. He announced he was sending troops to Portland, Oregon, and to Memphis, Tennessee. The secretary of defense federalizes National Guard troops to do that. As you have both seen, constitutional law experts, historians, a lot of folks are saying this is very dangerous precedent that’s being set here. Amy, is any of that resonating with the American public? AMY WALTER, COOK POLITICAL REPORT: Well I went back and I looked at Donald Trump’s approval rating on average over the course of his first term, which was 43 percent approved, 53 percent disapprove. Today, he’s at 43 percent approved, 54 percent disapprove. In other words, opinions about Donald Trump have been pretty settled for a long time. You could argue they were settled way before his first term ended and they haven’t really budged that much. He’s consolidated support among Republicans, which means he has a little bit of a higher floor than he used to, because Republicans are completely united around him. There’s not much he can do to lose them, if anything. But his ceiling is also low because there is still an ingrained significant percent of the public, whether we want to say it’s 54 percent or 51 percent, that say they don’t like and they don’t approve of how he handles his job as president. And that – over the course of his entire presidency, a lot happened. We had COVID, we had the protests, we had all these different things. It kind of still stays there. So to say, is it breaking through or not, it is, but is it changing people’s minds about him? No.
