President Trump is set to deliver the first official State of the Union address of his second term on Tuesday evening. CEO of Axios Jim VandeHei and MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” panel discuss the president’s poll numbers as he heads into the address and what to expect.

JIM VANDEHEI: You’ve painted a bleak picture for Republicans. I actually think it’s worse. It’s not just that he’s losing independents or underwater in approval. There’s a massive enthusiasm gap. Democrats are highly motivated. Republicans are not. So he’s losing independents, he has an unmotivated Republican base, and a highly motivated Democratic Party. In local and state races over the last few months, Democrats are routinely outperforming their performance from two years ago. That’s a bad sign. I can’t find a single Republican who doesn’t think they’re going to get clobbered in November. Even the Senate – which didn’t look in play – could be. And here’s the thing: Trump doesn’t seem to care. When I talk to his aides and Republicans going to him, they say, Please, please stop talking about tariffs. Stop talking about Venezuela. Stop talking about Greenland. Please talk about affordability. We’ve got to win the House. We’ve got to win the Senate. Nothing. He just doesn’t care. He thinks he’s killing it. I think you’ll see that tonight. He’ll say we’re crushing it, it’s a golden era, this is American exceptionalism. He believes that – at least based on who he’s listening to. Meanwhile, Republicans are worried privately. They’ll praise him publicly, but behind the scenes, they’re deeply concerned. … People want instant gratification, instant reward or punishment when somebody does something wrong in politics. Punishment in politics comes slowly, but surely. It takes time for people to put together the pieces and start to get angry and then start to act on it. Little by little, if you see chaos, if you see corruption, maybe one story doesn’t move things – that’s what you’re seeing here. And you’re right. If you look at how President Trump governs, he governs much more by using executive authority, executive orders, using his ability to negotiate or intimidate. He doesn’t really worry about legislating. So I think in his mind he’s thinking, whatever, I can do a lot of things without Congress. And I don’t think he cares if he gets impeached because he knows he would never get removed from office. He isn’t driven by the same polls that you would be driven by if you’re in Congress. If you’re in Congress, you’re in a hell of a vice. You want to be so loyal to the president, you don’t want MAGA to turn on you, but you’re looking at the exact same polls we are. And for people who are skeptical of polls, maybe one poll is wrong, but if every poll, every week, says the exact same thing on every topic, it’s probably what people think. And internal Republican polls are actually even worse than the public polls.

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