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April 25, 2025 11:27-11:32 - CSPAN
04:54
Washington Journal Clifford Young
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cliff young
00:33
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greta brawner
cspan 00:32
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unidentified
President Trump and members of his administration will not be in attendance after declining an invitation from the White House Correspondents Association.
Former Trump White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and veteran journalist Frank Cesno will join us in studio during the dinner to discuss the annual event, the role of the press corps, and its relationship with the Trump administration.
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Our live coverage begins at 8 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN.
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greta brawner
Back at our table this morning, Cliff Young, polling and societal trends president of Ipsos, here to talk about public interest and public opinions in President Trump's first 100 days.
So let's talk about his overall approval rating as we approach 100 days.
That is next week.
What did you find?
unidentified
Well, we found there's been a decline since he took office, and whether that be Ipsus polling or just the average of all polls, both show a five-point decline.
Ours shows from 47 points to 42 points.
And so the question is, is that a lot?
Is that a little?
And let's look at history a bit.
And what we know by history is that if we go back to 1948, the average decline the first 100 days is about three points.
He's at five points, so he's a little bit above that.
Not significantly so, not outside the expectations.
But when you look at public opinion generally, there's a lot of noise in it.
We can talk about that, especially relative to tariffs and a lot of the actions taken.
But his approval ratings, I would say, are within expectations.
When you say there's a lot of noise, what do you mean by that?
cliff young
A lot of, depending on the indicator, if you look at his handling of the economy as one, people's opinion of tariffs as another, thwarting court orders, these are just examples of a variety of specific issues that America is a little bit standoffish about.
unidentified
They're negative towards.
And that doesn't necessarily translate into the approval ratings right now.
It can, it might, but at this moment, it isn't.
cliff young
But we can see on the edges this sort of noise friction, unease.
unidentified
Indeed, if we look at focus groups, that is not polling, which is quantitative, where we call you or knock on your door and talk to you, but when we basically sit down with you and have a conversation, Americans are saying the same thing.
greta brawner
Well, if it's not the issues that are driving down his numbers, then what is it?
unidentified
Well, it is the economy.
It's the anticipation of the economy potentially doing worse.
And so it's not what's happening today.
It's an anticipation of what might happen.
cliff young
Obviously, doing things that are different, breaking routine.
unidentified
Any human, including Americans in general, but humans feel uneasy about that.
And I would just sort of characterize the President Zeitgeist as unease and underlying tension.
greta brawner
Okay, and so what are people uneasy about when it comes to the economy?
unidentified
Well, inflation, cost of living, making ends meet.
cliff young
If you go out and talk to people, that's what they cite.
unidentified
They talk about, I'm expecting that.
We came off of high inflation.
We came off of cost of living.
I voted for Trump because of that, but I'm anticipating that that will happen.
I'm cutting back on some non-essentials.
cliff young
I'm not going to travel like I thought I was going to.
unidentified
I'm stocking up on things that I can.
And that's what we're hearing today.
It's specifically about the economy.
It's about cost of living.
greta brawner
All right.
unidentified
So let's take a look at this graphic that put together by Ipsos.
greta brawner
Approval ratings decrease with inflation.
unidentified
Two-point inflation increase is consequential for approval ratings.
greta brawner
Explain that data.
cliff young
Yeah.
unidentified
Okay, you have inflation and you have unemployment, right?
These are two economic indicators that have negative impacts on presidential approval.
Inflation has a much greater impact.
And so by our own modeling, our own analysis, a two-point increase in inflation translates to a decline of four to six approval rating points.
In other words, a negative impact.
And why is that the case?
Once again, people can't make ends meet.
They can't take care of their families like they expect they do.
You can continue watching this on our website, c-span.org.
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Thank you.
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