Attendees participate in Rededicate 250: National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 17, 2026. REUTERS/Eric Lee
A conservative commentator observed on Monday that President Donald Trump’s plummeting approval rating indicates one thing — many of his supporters realize he does not care about them.
“CNN approval out this morning — CNN, New York Times — Trump approved 37, disapproved 59,” The Bulwark’s Tim Miller commented on Monday in a conversation with Bill Kristol, the longtime conservative pundit. Miller also pointed out that CBS’ poll found that “Trump approved 37, disapproved 63. I thought, interestingly, in the CBS poll, they asked about Trump's favorability on the economy — even lower than his overall favorability, 30 percent favorability on the economy. Now we're getting down towards that Tricky Dick line at 30 percent.”
Kristol described the polls as “striking” and explained what they augur for the president.
“Republicans running for Congress will win some Trump disapprovers,” Kristol said. “There's no question there are some people who say, ‘I disapprove of Trump,’ and I'm still voting for one Republican member of Congress. But when you're having a midterm election when the president's party has controlled both houses of Congress, it becomes a referendum on: do you want a Congress to continue to go along with the president, or to check the president? You don't win that many usually if you're a disapprover.”
Kristol qualified his dire prediction by noting that he doubts Trump’s numbers will continue to decline, and that eventually they will likely stabilize or even rise a little bit. Yet the larger trend, he argued, bodes poorly for Trump’s prospects in the midterm elections. One statistic in particular stood out to Kristol.
“‘Does Trump care about people like you?’ was terrible for Trump,” Kristol observed. “‘How much do you think Donald Trump cares about the needs and problems of people like you?’ A lot: 18 percent. Some: 17 percent. So 35 percent cares about you. Not much: 14 percent. Not at all: 51 percent. 35–65. That's been a Trump strength — caring about people like you, right? I mean — man — 51 percent doesn't care about you at all. 52 percent strongly disapprove. That's a very big hill to climb for the Republicans.”
Miller responded to Kristol by noting that Democrats remain broadly unpopular, but that this unpopularity is mainly due to the perception they have underreacted to Trump. For this reason, he advised them to continue honing in on the president in their messaging.
“The one piece of advice for the Democrats, therefore, is keep the focus on Trump,” Miller told Kristol. “Make the 2026 midterm about Trump. Force the Republican members of Congress to vote to defend the most unpopular things Trump is doing over and over and over. And I think those unpopular things can range from serious unpopular things — the war and the like — to the ballroom and all the symbolic things that show Trump doesn't care about you and he's just obsessed with himself. So that is my strategic advice to Democrats. Forget about yourself. Make it all about Trump.”
Trump worsened the perception that he does not care about ordinary Americans during an interview earlier this month with The New York Times’ Erica Green. When she asked him if he will consider Americans’ economic hardships while trying to strike a deal with Iran to end the ongoing war, Trump said he would not.
“Not even a little bit,” Trump said to Green. “I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing: We cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.”
As The New York Times political reporter Katie Gleuck observed, this response “flouted” conventional wisdom about what is required to win American elections.
“It was a response that flouted fundamental rules of American politics — that voters are motivated above all by economic concerns, that they want to support politicians who ‘care about people like me’ — and it was a risky one, given Trump’s dire political standing,” Glueck wrote on Wednesday. “His disapproval rating is consistently hovering around 60 percent or worse; a new CNN poll found that 77 percent of Americans — including a majority of Republicans — thought his policies had increased the cost of living in their own community; inflation rose a startling 3.8 percent in April, the fastest rate since May 2023, sending a flashing warning about how the war in the Middle East is raising prices for Americans; [and] Republican pushback to the conflict is growing in Congress.”
