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Trump approval rating improves in pandemic

Trump approval rating improves in pandemic

Video Transcript

RICK NEWMAN: From Yahoo Finance, this is "Electionomics." I'm Rick Newman.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And I am Alexis Christoforous. And, once again, we are bringing you this "Electionomics" podcast from our respective homes. Today we are going to be talking about President Trump's approval rating during this pandemic, which is actually going up right now. And, Rick Newman, I'm a little confused. Help us understand this because his approval rating during this pandemic is the highest it's been throughout his presidency. But when you look at general national polls, he's not doing as well as Joe Biden. What gives?

RICK NEWMAN: Right, almost as high as it's been in his presidency. I guess it depends what polls you look at.

So I'm looking right here at the "FiveThirtyEight," the composite of polls. They take a bunch of different polls and put them together. So they're saying Trump's approval rating is 45.4%, and there has been a bump during the last couple of weeks. So it's up from about 42.3%. So let's call that a-- let's call it a three-point improvement in his approval rating. His disapproval rating has come down, but it's still higher than his approval rating at 49.7%.

So let's call it 45%-- 46%, actually, for approval, 50%, for disapproval. So a net minus 4% approval rating, but that's a lot better than it's been for him in the past. I mean, he's been as high as minus 15% in this survey, so down to minus 4% net approval rating.

He is getting a bit of a bump from the crisis, but believe it or not, pollsters are still doing surveys saying-- asking voters, well, if the general election is Joe Biden versus Donald Trump, who are you going to vote for? And in those polls-- so I'm looking at a different composite. That's the "FiveThirtyEight"-- excuse me, not "FiveThirtyEight," but "RealClearPolitics" does a good composite of the national polls. Joe Biden wins by 6.5 percentage points.

Now that's a national poll. That's not focused on any particular state or set of states, but what it kind of shows you is that Americans are a little more favorable toward Trump during the coronavirus crisis where they're seeing him on TV, but they might still be saying, yeah, you're doing a little bit better than you were before, but I don't really think you should have a second term.

Now, I think anything could change at this point. Joe Biden has sort of gone into third gear in his campaign. He's not really quite sure how to play this, and Trump is getting a lot more publicity right now because he's doing these daily briefings. But this is not helping Trump very much. That's kind of my read of it.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Well, do you think, though, Rick, that, at the end of the day, this presidential election is shaping up to be a referendum on how Trump handles this pandemic? And there is still time here for him to change people's perceptions because we still have a few months to go. A lot of things are going to happen between now and November. Of course, we're all hoping we come out the other side of this and the economy starts to rebound in that time. And if it does, is that going to be top of mind for voters as they head to the polls or however it is we're going to be voting this year, and could that actually work in Trump's favor?

RICK NEWMAN: You know, so Trump has-- he seems pleased with the approval ratings he's getting and also with the TV ratings. He has gone out of his way to point out that he has strong TV ratings for those briefings, which are now around 5 o'clock every afternoon.

I think it's the opposite. I think that Trump is getting such a small bump from this crisis that it ought to be actually quite worrisome for him. And here's one way to think about it. So I'm looking at the change in approval ratings for the leaders of other countries. So this is Morning Consult. So Trump is up, you know, two to three percentage points since the middle of March. Let's see. Angela Merkel in Germany, she's up nine percentage points. Boris Johnson in the UK, he's up 15 percentage points. And Emmanuel Macron in France, he started out very unpopular, but his reputationally is improving in France. He's gone from 28% to 35% approval, so that's seven points. All those leaders are getting a much bigger bump than Trump is.

And I think it's probably natural for a leader to get a bump in approval in the early days of a crisis. People haven't really sorted out whether they think the leader, the president, or whatever-- your prime minister or whoever it is, your chancellor-- haven't really sorted out who deserves the blame for this and could anybody have made this better? They just want to see the country come together and, you know, kind of rally to defeat the problem.

So I think it's normal, and we know that from, you know, past incidents. You know, 9/11, for example, George W. Bush's approval rating went up. Certainly World War II. Things like this where something comes out of nowhere like a sneak attack, I mean, you do get-- you know, the nation does come together a little bit.

Trump is just getting such a small bump though that I think that he should be very worried about that portends for what's coming in a few months and certainly what's coming in the fall when voters are deciding whom to vote for. I mean, this has only begun. And we are hearing a lot about the economic damage this is going to cause, but I don't think many people are actually feeling that economic damage yet, at least not the full extent of it.

Just give you one example on that. So we've got consumer-confidence data recently. And consumer-- you know, this is from mid-March. So we were now into the lockdown phase, you know, after Trump had given his federal social-distancing guidelines. And consumer confidence was down, but it was down to levels of 2016. And we are almost certainly going into a deeper recession than we had in 2008 and 2009. It may not last as long as that downturn, but this recession is going to be brutal for at least three months and possibly six to nine months.

And I think this has not yet hit people. And when it does, I think it's going to be grueling, and people are going to start to say what is the president-- why is the president not getting us out of this? So I think that's a major risk for him.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: I think you're right. I mean, just this past week we've heard about furloughs at major retailers like Macy's and Kohl's, and that's just expected to continue. So more and more regular people are going to be feeling the economic effects for sure.

I want to go back--

RICK NEWMAN: And, Alexis, I would point out, so those are furloughs, which means-- so I'm thinking of Macy's, for example. I think it's over 100,000 people affected at Macy's. So they are going to-- they're sort of going to keep people on the books through the end of May, I think it is, which means they will continue to get health insurance if they got it before, but think about what's going to happen after May. I mean, that's a point at which companies like Macy's and Kohl's, they're just not going to be able to afford to keep people on. And based on my understanding of how long it's going to take to corral this thing, I don't think we're going to have stores open by June.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Yeah. I mean, that's a big question mark, and a lot of these stores were in trouble. JCPenney, for instance, in trouble, you know, well ahead of this pandemic.

I want to go back to Joe Biden for a minute because we are seeing the hashtag #WheresJoe trending all over the place. I mean, really, where is he, and do we need to or should the Democratic Party be worried here that there seems to be this enthusiasm gap when it comes to Biden?

RICK NEWMAN: Well, Joe Biden is at home in Delaware, and he now has a TV operation in his basement, apparently. So he is not on the campaign trail anymore. He is-- but he is broadcasting. I just don't think anybody's watching. You can-- you know, you can get this from his campaign website, and you can follow along on his Twitter account and find out when he's doing these live briefings. And he's doing some of the news shows, and he's, you know, saying what's taking Trump so long?

I mean, I've looked through his plans and his criticism of President Trump, and I think, you know, it's relatively valid. It is clear at this point that the government, whether you want to call it the Trump administration or the CDC, I mean, it's clear that they botched the rollout of the tests. They did not take this seriously for six to eight weeks when they could have been launching into action and gotten ahead of it sooner. And even now, Trump still seems reluctant to do all that he could do in terms of invoking this Defense Production Act and ordering private-sector companies to do things to help.

We are woeful-- we remain really woefully short of tasks. This is actually a very big deal, and Biden is calling out all of that. I just don't think anybody really cares at the moment. And if you think about it, Joe Biden is not in a position to run-- he's not in charge of anything except his own campaign. You know, he has no role in government right now. And the election is still-- what is it, seven months away?

So it seems like he has to-- he has to start-- he has to keep popping his head up to remain relevant and reminding people he's around, but now is not-- probably not the best time for him to be banging pots and pans and saying pay attention to me. There is still a lot of time left. So Biden is probably on the sidelines appropriately.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And, you know, we're already hearing chatter about the July convention. The Democratic Convention might have to go virtual. And talk about where's Joe? Where's Bernie? I mean, I guess he's, you know, voting on these stimulus packages and part of what's happening on Capitol Hill regarding the pandemic. Is it surprising to you that he is still in the race? Let's not forget. I mean, he has not bowed out here.

RICK NEWMAN: That's where Bernie Sanders is. He is still, you know, acting and behaving as if he is a legitimate presidential candidate. And to be fair, you know, he's not so far behind in the delegate count that he's a super long shot. I mean, if the voting were going normally, I think he might be out by now because Biden might actually have come very close to the threshold needed to clinch the nomination. He was on a roll, and we had, you know, a bunch of elections coming up that have now been postponed. A lot of them are going to take place now in early June.

So what this pandemic has done is it has delayed Joe Biden clinching the Democratic nomination and sort of created this weird window of opportunity where Bernie Sanders otherwise would probably be gone. But we all know enough about Bernie Sanders at this point to know that he will never turn down an opportunity to mount a podium and rant about all the problems in the United States, and so he's going to hang in there.

You know, he probably-- I think what Bernie Sanders is going to do, he's going to hang in there until the very last second because, you know, there's a little-- to my mind, you know, there's a little bit of an ego thing going on here with Bernie Sanders. Maybe it's not a little thing. Maybe it's a big thing. He just wants a megaphone. He wants a megaphone so he can tell people what he thinks and what he thinks we ought to do. And as a presidential candidate, his megaphone and his platform is bigger than if he quits and he's just a senator.

So I think he's going to stay in until the last minute. We have seen hints that he recognizes he is going to have to throw in the towel instead of just playing spoiler because if he somehow just-- you know, let's say he were to run as a third-party candidate and say, I'm taking all my supporters with me. They're all going to vote for me. He realizes that that would pave the way for Trump to win, so he has indicated that he probably will get behind Biden, but I think he's going to do it at the last second.

And, you know, Biden is sort of fighting a two-front war still. He wants to pretend Bernie Sanders isn't there and just focus on Donald Trump, but Bernie Sanders is there, and he can't completely ignore him.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Now this is a super long shot, but I'm going to throw it out there. Talk about spoilers, right? It looks like Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York is sort of having his moment as America's governor, if you will. We saw it happen with Mayor Rudy Giuliani when he was called, you know, the mayor of America. Do you think that Cuomo-- I mean, there's even talk about a draft Cuomo campaign, like, you know, trying to get him into this presidential race.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: His approval rating is really high. I mean, this past month, I think it's like more than 70%, and a third of that came in just the past month with the way he's been dealing with the pandemic and New York City we know being the epicenter, at least at the time of this podcast recording.

What do you think about the way the country may be viewing Andrew Cuomo? We know he had aspirations-- higher aspirations. I guess he could have run formally this time around. He did not. What are your thoughts on him?

RICK NEWMAN: Well, first of all, he's not a candidate, so how would he get delegates? I mean, you know, delegates who have pledged to vote for Joe Biden must vote for Joe Biden unless there's some-- you know, some breakdown in the machinery, you know, this contested convention we were talking about before. So, I mean, could he swoop in and, you know, mount a coup of some type?

I doubt it, but let's say something happens to Biden, and let's say something happens to Sanders, or let's say there's something totally unpredictable happening. We go back to nobody gets a majority of delegates on the Democratic side. I suppose there's some, like, wish-list scenario where Andrew Cuomo could come in, but I think there's just no chance he would even do that. I mean, so what has happened with him?

And by the way, to go back to what we were talking about Trump's approval rating, so you're right. Andrew Cuomo's approval rating, it was around 50% before this epidemic hit New York-- pandemic, sorry. And it's now in the 70s, low 71%-- I think 71%. So at least a 20-point gain in a month for him, and 80%-- I think it was 87% said they approve of the way he's handling the crisis.

So just take the lower number, the 20% increase in approval rating. That's what's possible, you know, when people see a leader handling a crisis. So let's go back to Trump's little bump of 2% to 3%. I mean, that tells you the opportunity loss for Trump I think because he could have gotten something similar to Andrew Cuomo.

But, you know, Andrew Cuomo, I think he's 62, and he probably-- so he can run for governor. He's in his third term as governor, and he can actually run for a fourth term, which would come in 2022, I guess. And if you think about it, the timing in that way if he does that. So he would-- four years from now, he'd be 66, a youngster by the standards of today's presidential candidates, and he'd be in his fourth term as governor. That would be kind of an ideal point to run, especially-- I mean, if Joe Biden wins, good chance he'll be a one-term president. And if President Trump wins, well, he'll be on his way out.

So that seems to be the opportunity for Andrew Cuomo. You're a resident of New York, Alexis, just like I am, New York state, and you know as I do that he's not universally loved. He can be very wooden, and he's considered a bully. And he's having a good moment now because his sort of forceful personality works for the moment. He's not really warm and cuddly, and I'm not sure he'd be a shoo-in. Feel free to comment on that.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Yeah, I mean, he has certainly taken on President Trump during this pandemic. He seems to be the guy on the front lines for all the health-care workers in New York, saying we don't have what we need. Where are the masks? Where are the ventilators? So I think from that standpoint people are rallying behind him because they feel like they have an advocate in Cuomo.

But, you know, I want to get back to Trump and his approval rating right now, which we said at the top of this podcast is rising but not nearly as much as his counterparts in other parts of the world. Take a look at Boris Johnson. I think you said his approval rating is-- what is it? It's gained by 15%.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah, I'm looking at it right here. So it's gone from 46% at the beginning of March to 61% in the latest numbers. So that's up 15%, 15 point.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: Yeah. I'm wondering what that's about. We know also he said that he is COVID-19 positive and quarantining himself, but a lot of are saying he was also late to action here, and he was around shaking people's hands in his cabinet and talking to people in close proximity, not keeping the social distancing. You know, and they're like, yeah, surprise, surprise he got COVID-19. So, I mean, I wonder why the numbers are so different and people are responding differently to a Boris Johnson than they are to a Donald Trump.

RICK NEWMAN: I can only guess. But one thing that is just completely lacking from all of Trump's public appearances is a sense of empathy for the victims of this. I mean, that's where I personally find the biggest contrast between him and Andrew Cuomo here in New York.

And, I mean, tell me what you think, Alexis, but, you know, Andrew Cuomo, he's doing so well with people because he talks about the human cost of this in ways that make it sound like he gets it. He talks about family members and his concern about his own family members and people he knows. And President Trump--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: --own brother now has it.

RICK NEWMAN: Yeah, that's right.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: --that he's got it and he's concerned about giving it to his wife and kids. So yeah, you're right. I think you're right. I think that human element is there with Cuomo that--

[INTERPOSING VOICES]

RICK NEWMAN: I'll say one more thing about Trump. You know, since I watch many of these briefings, you know, a significant portion of every one of these briefings is Trump bragging about what a great job he's doing, and he's not. He's not doing a great job. I mean, you know, as we're now-- look, I mean, we're in the early days of this-- I've got to turn my screen on here. We're on the early days-- we're in the early days of this pandemic here in the United States, and if you look at the numbers and the trends compared with other countries that have grappled with this, the trends are terrible. They are terrible. It is definitely worse here because we took a long time to figure out what was going on. We are way behind on testing. Trump keeps saying we've done more tests than anybody. That may or may not be true, but that's just on an absolute basis, you know, raw number of tests.

I mean, we're a giant country, and the raw number of tests you do-- obviously you have to compare it to the population. We still-- you know, we still have governor saying, where are the tests? And we've got situations-- we're still only testing people who have severe symptoms of this. If you think-- if you have some symptoms but you don't have to go to the hospital, you don't get a test. You just stay home and assume you have it.

And in order to beat this thing and get back to something normal, we have to have massive testing. I mean, this is really the number-one thing. The number-one economic stimulus thing right now is testing.

So I'm digressing here because Trump keeps saying what a great job he's doing on testing. That is not true. It is taking forever to get tests everywhere, and that has a mounting and compounding economic impact day by day.

So this is why I think Trump is on thin ice because he's going to keep telling every-- telling the American public everything's fine, and more and more, people are going to see the economy around them shutting down. They're going to be more-- have more and more trouble paying their bills, and Trump is going to keep telling them things are fine and he's doing a great job, and people are not going to believe it.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: It's my understanding that he dismantled this sort of-- this pandemic task force that had been in place months before this pandemic hit. So in hindsight, that was a pretty lousy decision on the part of Trump and his administration.

But let's just take a step back for a minute. You say he's doing a lousy job, but he has brought together, really in record time, CEOs of major US corporations to work in tandem to get people the essentials they need. Remember that press conference he had weeks ago now with the heads of Walmart and Target and some of the pharma companies? He is giving the FDA the ability to fast track drugs that they believe could be helpful in the treatment and then ultimately a vaccine.

So is he doing an awful job? I'm just going to, you know, push back a little bit and say is he not needing to deal with something that's happening, you know, in real time pretty rapidly, and he really is pulling together the public and private sector.

RICK NEWMAN: I guess it depends how you define success. If you define success as better late than never, OK, then I guess he's-- then I guess he's doing OK. You know, we used to consider the United States to be a world leader in things like the ability to enlist the power of the private sector and address things quickly and be nimble and move fast, and we're just not. We're not moving fast.

So even if you go back to that press conference-- you, Trump is-- I acknowledge Trump is great at press conferences, and he's great at marketing. He's great at making people think something is true whether it is true or not.

But we're approaching the point where people are going to start asking, is the emperor wearing any clothes here? because based on-- I mean, this is not-- I mean, based on the economic forecasts I'm looking at, which is a ton of them-- you know, all the forecasters in the Wall Street firms. You're looking at much the same stuff, Alexis. And what it's going to take to get to the point where we can tell people, OK, it is OK to go back to work and you can trust that you're not going to get sick if you start going back to bars and restaurants, I think we're months away from that.

I think this is not dawning on people yet because this is still relatively fresh, and people-- you know, there's kind of an element of disbelief among people. This can't be happening. Oh, it won't-- it'll be over soon. I just don't know how you convince people to go back to restaurants if the virus is still out there. I mean, who's going to do that?

And this is just going to-- meanwhile, this is just going to hit more and more communities in the United States. You know, we're in the epicenter of it right now in New York City, and it's not going to peak here for probably at least a couple of weeks. And then that is going to be the same pattern that happens all throughout the country-- maybe not everywhere but enough places, I think, to scare the daylights out of everybody.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: And you know what I'm also thinking about is when we do come out the other side, Rick, and places start to reopen, how willing are people going to be to go out and spend and get close to people and go to places where there are large gatherings? I'm already thinking, you know what? We're just foregoing any kind of vacation this year. Don't want to know it. Don't want to even take a road trip. I want to stay close to home.

So, you know, the question becomes even when you open America again for business, are consumers, those who can spend-- because remember, a lot of people are going to lose their jobs here as well and will not be able to go out and spend when America reopens. But is there going to be that appetite to go out and do that? And if not, I have to think that does not play well for Trump as we move closer to election day.

RICK NEWMAN: The virus is going to be with us until we develop a vaccine, and even once we have a vaccine, it's still going to be with us for a long time after that-- I mean, really until everybody has been vaccinated. So we know that the fastest we can expect a vaccine might be one year from now, and then it will take time to mass produce it and get it to-- I mean, it could be another year or two before everybody has had a vaccine.

So what do we do in the meanwhile? It's possible that-- I mean, this is the catch-22 of this situation. The only way to limit the spread of the virus is to keep everybody home and close all these businesses, and that is the very thing that's going to put the economy into a recession, possibly a severe recession, and possibly a depression. But if we don't do that, it's going to be even worse because everyone's going to stay home anyway, and the virus will actually spread farther and faster. I mean, it's really a terrible conundrum. I mean, this is why happy talk from leaders is going to backfire because there's going to come a point when the president's saying things are OK and it's going to be apparent to, you know, almost everybody that things are not OK.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right, Rick, listen, we're going to leave it there for this week, but we ask all of our viewers and our listeners to hang tough with us. Hang in your home and do what you can to get through it because we're going through it together. And do be sure to rate and review what you just heard and saw, and follow me on Twitter @AlexisTVNews.

RICK NEWMAN: And me @RickJNewman. Don't blame the messengers.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: All right, everybody, we'll see you next time.

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