| Speaker | Time | Text |
|---|---|---|
|
unidentified
|
Expected to return later today for legislative business. | |
| Today, the House considers several bills related to cybersecurity, including legislation requiring the federal government to examine the cybersecurity of existing wireless networks. | ||
| This week, House members also plan to take up a Senate-approved bill that aims to create a regulatory framework for payment stablecoins in the crypto market. | ||
| When members return, you can follow our live coverage here on C-SPAN. | ||
| This afternoon, information technology officials will testify on priorities for the Veterans Affairs Department's modernization efforts. | ||
| From the House Veterans Affairs Technology Modernization Subcommittee, watch live at 3 p.m. Eastern on C-SPAN 3, C-SPAN Now, our free mobile video app, or online at c-SPAN.org. | ||
| Wednesday, watch C-SPAN's coverage of the 17th Annual Congressional Women's Softball Game. | ||
| Live from Audi Field in Washington, D.C. Join members of Congress, along with the Washington, D.C. Press Corps, for more than just a time of friendly competition and camaraderie. | ||
| A shared mission to strike out breast cancer. | ||
| Don't miss the Congressional Women's Softball Game. | ||
| Live coverage starts Wednesday at 7.30 p.m. Eastern on the C-SPAN Networks. | ||
| Cliff Young is certainly no stranger to the Washington Journal. | ||
| He oversees polling and societal trend surveys at Ipsos Public Affairs. | ||
| Back with us today with a slew of new data on how Americans feel about President Trump's first six months of his second term. | ||
| So let's start with overall approval ratings. | ||
| Where does President Trump stand right now? | ||
| And then how does he compare with other presidents at the beginning of their second terms in office? | ||
| And so what we did, by the way, it's great to be here. | ||
| And yeah, great. | ||
| Great to be here. | ||
| What we did was take the average of the average, not just Ipsus polls, but polls across the board. | ||
| And Trump is around 40%, 45%, excuse me, approval ratings. | ||
| The question is, is that good or bad? | ||
| And I would say he's in a pretty good place. | ||
| Relative to 2017, he's in a much better place than he was in that first administration. | ||
| And if you look at the average decline across all administrations since 1948, he's right at the average. | ||
| He's declined about five or six points. | ||
| That is the average, which is six points. | ||
| He took a stronger dip a few months ago, as we know. | ||
| There's a lot of friction, especially around tariffs. | ||
| He paused a bit. | ||
| He stepped back that as Trump stepped back a bit. | ||
| And he, from an approval standpoint, is in a pretty good place. | ||
| Is it an apples-to-apples comparison to talk about Trump's second term versus other two-term presidents because he had that four-year break between his first and second term? | ||
| Yeah, that's a great question. | ||
| It's a difficult one to find empirical evidence on. | ||
| I'd say probably he's a little bit different than the norm than the average. | ||
| But I think it's reasonable to compare his first term with his second term. | ||
| President Trump, at the beginning of this second term, making a big bet on the One Big Beautiful bill, which is now a law. | ||
| How do Americans feel about the One Big Beautiful law? | ||
| It depends. | ||
| If you ask Americans in general, if they're in favor of it, it's not so clear, only about a plurality or in support. | ||
| It really depends on how you phrase it, how you word it. | ||
| But somewhere between 20% and 35% of Americans are in favor of the bill. | ||
| We have some data that suggests about 20, 22%. | ||
| But the bill is not a monolith. | ||
| And when you peel away the onion, there are a lot of nuggets in there. | ||
| There are a lot of details in there that Americans are in favor of, especially as they have to do with the middle class, such as no tax on tips. | ||
| Do Americans feel like they understand what's actually in this bill? | ||
| No, it's still very distant. | ||
| It's not front and center. | ||
| They're worried about making ends meet. | ||
| They're worried about taking kids to summer sports. | ||
| They're worried about their health. | ||
| They're worried about being safe, et cetera, et cetera, with those more meat and potato issues. | ||
| So it is still distant. | ||
| But when we present them the details of the bill, that is the specific benefits, potential benefits of the bill, Americans tend to be more in favor of it than not. | ||
| So how do you do that with a piece of legislation, a law at this point, that is so big? | ||
| How do you choose what to pull out and present people with when you're asking them whether they support this law or not? | ||
| How do you do that as a pollster? | ||
| Yeah, that's a great question. | ||
| There's some sort of judgment involved. | ||
| We followed the script of the ACA. | ||
| We did the same thing with Obamacare. | ||
| We ask a general ballot question, like in general, are you in favor of this bill? | ||
| We don't put a lot of specifics there. | ||
| We make sure it's somewhat vague. | ||
| And then we go into the details of the bill. | ||
| Now, what we pull out or pins out is a judgment call. | ||
| We try to get those things we think will create consensus. | ||
| Those are the things that will be more controversial. | ||
| And we lay it out and we ask the specifics. | ||
| So typically what we'll do is we'll ask a general question about the ballot that is abstract, more conceptual in nature, and then we'll ask the specifics. | ||
| Cliff Young with us is in charge of polling and societal trends for Ipsos public affairs. | ||
| A great person to ask your polling questions of. | ||
| He's steeped in all of it with us for the next 35 minutes here on the Washington Journal until the end of our program. | ||
| If you want to join the conversation and you're a Democrat, 202-748-8000. | ||
| Republicans, 202-748-8001. | ||
| Independents, 202-748-8002. | ||
| You've also been in the field polling since the U.S. airstrikes on Iran. | ||
| What did you find on that front? | ||
| That America is divided, that it's controversial. | ||
| About a third of the population, especially Republicans, are very much in favor of the administration's actions. | ||
| Democrats aren't. | ||
| Like I said, it's very partisan. | ||
| There's a lot of queuing, right? | ||
| If you like Trump, you're probably in favor of the bill. | ||
| If you don't like Trump, you're probably not in favor of the bill. | ||
| I think more fundamentally, though, what we find is a huge age differentiation. | ||
| What we're finding, not just with Iran, but also with Gaza as well as the Ukraine across the board, foreign policy in general, young Americans are less in favor of a more muscular policy. | ||
| They're much different than baby boomers. | ||
| They're much different than gen Xers like myself. | ||
| And that's a general trend we're finding independent of partisanship, and it manifests itself as well on the Iranian airstrikes. | ||
| Is that something that is cyclical, though? | ||
| Are those young people today going to be the older people of tomorrow who are a bit more okay with interventionalism than the young people of tomorrow will be against it? | ||
| What have you found over time? | ||
| Or is that something unique to this time that we are in? | ||
| Yeah, basically, as you get older, you get more conservative. | ||
| You get more cratchy like me. | ||
| I become more cratchy over time. | ||
| No, actually, what's interesting is that when we compare younger people, let's say, to the Vietnam generation or to the Iraq 1 generation or the Iraq 2 generation, younger people today are definitively less interventionist in nature. | ||
| The question would be why, and there's a variety of factors, one of which I believe are the forever wars, the fact that Americans, young Americans, feel like the government has lied to them over time. | ||
| And this is something we believe that is a significant generational difference that will shape America looking forward into the future. | ||
| Just for our visual learners, let me show the chart. | ||
| The question that was asked, do you support or oppose the recent U.S. airstrikes on Iranian military targets? | ||
| Overall, among all Americans, 35%, 36%, I should say, support it. | ||
| Among Gen Z, though, it's just 25%. | ||
| Millennials, 27%. | ||
| Gen Xers, 39%. | ||
| Baby boomers, 47%. | ||
| You can see those numbers creep up as individuals get older. | ||
| One more topic before we go to calls, and it's on the foreign policy front. | ||
| We're expecting an announcement from President Trump today on Russia and Ukraine. | ||
| What do you find in your polling about American support for Ukraine in its war with Russia? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah, once again, it's more distant. | |
| Americans are concerned about bread and butter issues for the most part. | ||
| There is a partisan break there. | ||
| Basically, Democrats are more in favor of Ukraine, intervention, let's say more specifically, than are Republicans. | ||
| But it's one of those things that I believe is just a tertiary issue, really, relative to all the more fundamental issues like the economy, like political extremism, and like immigration. | ||
| And we can get to some of those other issues as well. | ||
| Let me bring in some calls, though. | ||
| We'll head first to the city of Tucson in Arizona. | ||
| This is Carolyn, Line for Democrats. | ||
| You are on with Cliff Young. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Excuse me. | |
| Hi. | ||
| Yes, those were fascinating points to me because I am a relic. | ||
| And so my political beliefs kind of stem from a humanitarian viewpoint. | ||
| And my observation of government is similar to the youth in that I definitely feel we're manipulated. | ||
| I'm disappointed, in fact, that in journalism, there's not one area, one, we have no venue where someone, for example, will take Project 2025 and read it, however boring, and speak of what that is, because I feel that war has become very transactional, | ||
| probably always has been transactional. | ||
| But what the media used to do was inspire, I wouldn't say patriotism, but an emotional, a visceral response which indicated the trend, the heart of your nation. | ||
| So, Carolyn, I hope to respond. | ||
| Go ahead. | ||
| What news outlets do you trust? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Well, that's what I'm saying. | |
| I think I don't trust any per se, and that I would feel better if when the big beautiful bill arrives, someone would attempt to read the whole thing publicly, take 15 minutes of a broadcast. | ||
| So, Carolyn, they did read most of that bill publicly on the floor of the Senate. | ||
| Chuck Schumer, forcing Republicans. | ||
|
unidentified
|
I did. | |
| I did watch that, yes. | ||
| And that's very important, but that's not generally I'm talking broadcast news, not public information, because that will become more and more limited via Project 2025. | ||
| And it's unfortunate because most people don't pursue, don't have the time for that matter. | ||
| That's why we've gone to soundbite. | ||
| Well, Carolyn, let me take your point. | ||
| Cliff Young, give you a chance to respond. | ||
| Yeah, I think that she represents a broad trend in America today, which is people believe the system is broken. | ||
| They no longer believe traditional institutions, no matter what they are, right? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Media, science, big business, you can kind of list them out. | |
| And that's reflective in terms of what she's saying. | ||
| And it's not a partisan issue. | ||
| Republicans feel the same as Democrats. | ||
|
unidentified
|
They feel the system is broken. | |
| They feel like the establishment no longer works for the average person. | ||
| Indeed, we can understand the political outcome today in that context. | ||
| Donald Trump specifically represents one threat in that thinking. | ||
| He's a champion for many Americans who believe the system is broken. | ||
| He's there to, in their minds, fix a broken system. | ||
| And obviously, on the other side, Democrats feel very much the same sort of thing. | ||
| Maybe their champions are different. | ||
| And it's a belief system that's not just here in the United States. | ||
| It's something we find at IPS all over the world. | ||
| And it's really ingrained in our politics today. | ||
| So, through that lens, how would you view Donald Trump reaching out to his MAGA base via True Social over the weekend saying it's time to move past the Epstein case and how much consternation this case continues to cause? | ||
| Well, there's a couple things there. | ||
| The very fact that he has a direct connection with his base is something new. | ||
| I mean, he's bypassing more traditional media sources. | ||
| That's very much a hallmark of this anti-establishment movement, not just in the United States, but globally speaking. | ||
| And Epstein, in my mind, is one of those, let's call them, political proof points or problems with the base, right? | ||
| Because if the system is broken, maybe Epstein is an example of that. | ||
| And they, that is the base elected champions to fix a broken system. | ||
| And it creates noise, and definitely that's what we're saying right now. | ||
| The editorial board of the Wall Street Journal taking up the Epstein case, just the two first two graphs of their editorial today. | ||
| Donald Trump has traded in conspiracy stories for years. | ||
| Barack Obama was born in Kenya. | ||
| Ted Cruz's father had a link to the JFK killer. | ||
| The 2020 election with stolen migrants are barbecuing people's pets. | ||
| He seems to think this is good show business with appeal in certain niches of a fragmented culture. | ||
| Yet now he's upset that the Jeffrey Epstein theories that he fanned are proving hard to tamp down. | ||
| Mr. Trump lamenting online on Saturday that his administration is taking heat over a guy who never dies, Jeffrey Epstein. | ||
| For years, it's Epstein over and over again. | ||
| His advisors are suggesting that this was a snipe hunt, but the MAGA base is in fear and disbelief since the same people pledged to catch some snipe. | ||
| Yeah, and the context is a broadband belief that the system is broken. | ||
| And again, I don't think in the grand scheme of things it will weigh so heavily from a voting or public opinion standpoint. | ||
| But there is noise in the system today because the principal champion, President Trump, had been touting for a long time that he would fix the broken system. | ||
| And this seems to be contrary to that point. | ||
| Again, the context is such that these sorts of things are not easy for someone in a place like Donald Trump. | ||
| Back to the bluegrass state, Arlington, Kentucky. | ||
| Betty, Democrat, good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| He is the worst president that I've been through. | ||
| And I'm 90 years old and I've seen quite a few. | ||
| And he has the filthiest mouth I've ever heard of anybody as a president that people are supposed to look up to. | ||
| It only woes one word. | ||
| I, I, I, I. | ||
| And I is bull bully. | ||
| Betty, who's the best president you've seen in 90 years? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Jimmy Carter. | |
| What did you like about Jimmy Carter? | ||
|
unidentified
|
He was honest and he didn't have a and he was a good Christian. | |
| And Kennedy was a good president, too. | ||
| I can't complain about any of them, hardly, except Trump. | ||
| And he's broke every law that can become, has ever been made. | ||
| And he is, we're hitting it, we're in socialism right now, and people don't know it. | ||
| I lived in 16 states. | ||
| I lived in every crown of there is. | ||
| I wouldn't go overseas now because I'd be scared I'd be left over there. | ||
| What's Betty in Kentucky? | ||
| How would you respond to Betty? | ||
| Well, first, Trump is a polarizing figure. | ||
| It's very clear in the data. | ||
| You know, you either love him or you hate him, though. | ||
| There's individuals in the middle. | ||
| There's nuance. | ||
| We have to be careful with making overstating the point. | ||
| But he's not in a bad place from a popular perspective, as we were saying before. | ||
| He's at 45% approval rating, and that's a pretty good place, as we've already said. | ||
|
unidentified
|
It's within the historic average. | |
| And so whether she dislikes him specifically, she represents a certain sort of segment of the population. | ||
| There are many other Americans that think the contrary. | ||
| Will Donald Trump, if he goes through with them on August 1st with a slew of new tariffs, are those tariffs supported by that same base and that same 45% that is approving his job right now? | ||
| Yeah, first I would say the tariffs in general are a risk, right? | ||
| Americans see them as inflationary in nature. | ||
| They're worried about making ends meet. | ||
| We just came off a very difficult inflationary moment that we know, obviously, things have gotten better over the last little bit, the last few months, but that definitely is the fear of Americans. | ||
| But his base has supported them throughout. | ||
| You know, they understand, or at least their perception is, yes, there might be problems in the short term, but there are long-term benefits, like bringing jobs back to America. | ||
| And they've held steady and with steady support for him and his tariff regime. | ||
| I would say anywhere from 65% plus, depending on how you ask the question. | ||
| And that in part, in large part, is why he is where he is with his approval ratings. | ||
| An interesting question. | ||
| You asked Americans whether they expect prices of certain goods to increase due to tariffs. | ||
| And this is the percent of people that responded saying they did expect an increase in prices on personal and electronic phones. | ||
| 77% of Americans said they expected an increase in prices and that over the course of the next six months. | ||
| For automobiles, 73% expected an increase in prices. | ||
| The items you buy every day, 73% household appliances, 72%, fresh produce, 70%. | ||
| Home repairs and improvements, 62%. | ||
| Dairy items at just 56%. | ||
| Why did you want to ask and delve into specific items that people thought there would be price increases on? | ||
| Because Americans are discerning. | ||
| When you do surveys on their household purchase behavior, they're very discerning, obviously. | ||
| They know where every nickel and dime goes in terms of their expenditures. | ||
| But what we wanted to get at overall was, do Americans perceive tariffs as inflationary? | ||
| And the simple answer is yes, they do. | ||
| And in part, the sort of trepidation, unease we see in the polls in general, not in the approval ratings, but in relative optimism, in consumer confidence as examples. | ||
| They're more negative right now. | ||
| Americans are more pessimistic. | ||
| It's partially a function of this worry about future inflationary pressures. | ||
| 20 minutes left with Cliff Young of Ipsos Polling and taking your phone calls. | ||
| This is Tom in Philly Democrat. | ||
| Good morning. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Good morning. | |
| How are you today? | ||
| Doing well. | ||
| What's your question or comment? | ||
|
unidentified
|
Okay, this is a core problem with the polling industry and the fact that all the media uses it in different reasons. | |
| Your polling industry uses percentage all the time, but very a few times it actually tells you the number of people polled. | ||
| Look at any major news media graphic, and it'll say 70%, 60%, 30%, 20%. | ||
| And that seems like a big thing, but unless you know the sample size, it could be the people in an elevator. | ||
| So is it 10 people? | ||
| Is it 100 people? | ||
| Is it 1,000 people? | ||
| Is it 10,000 people? | ||
| The polling industry is all over the place, and that's based on your economics and who you call and who you sample. | ||
| But the news media only uses the 70%, the percentage. | ||
| Tom, got your point. | ||
| Let me just come back and I'll let Cliff Young jump in on this, but let me come back to that slide that I showed on Americans and how they feel about the one big beautiful bill. |