U.S. President Donald Trump speaks at Apple's announcement of a $100 billion investment in U.S. manufacturing, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., August 6, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
"Morning Joe" co-host Jonathan Lemire noted that the new Associated Press polls are so bad that it's starting to make the White House nervous.
"A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that only 17 percent of U.S. adults approve of the Republican president’s handling of the cost of living. Just 26 percent approve of his handling of the economy overall, marking a new low," the report said.
"Do you know how many Republicans that means?" said host Joe Scarborough. "How many Republicans don't approve? If it's 17 percent.
Lemire cautioned, "It gets even worse."
"Reading into some of the crosstabs now, 68 percent of those surveyed directly blame Trump," Lemire said. "They're not just saying like, oh, this is a victim of circumstance. There are other things out of his control. A majority of Americans, 65 percent, say it's his policies. The tariffs and the war in iIan are what's highlighted here are to blame for what's happening here."
He called the poll numbers so extraordinary that they're freaking out the White House.
"And we're talking about earlier, as I wrote on today, I mean, this is a White House and Republicans who now really feel the bottom could be dropping out. We've seen a number of elections lately. When it breaks late, it breaks one way," the two men discussed.
In Lemire's report for The Atlantic, he spoke with Matthew Bartlett, a GOP strategist who worked for Trump's first administration but quit after the Jan. 6 attack. He was the one who lamented that a "wipeout" may be coming.
According to Bartlett, “Many recent elections have broken late, and hard, and often in one direction only. Among Republicans there is little hope that things get better before Election Day, but grave concern they may get worse.”
"You have no message if you're a Republican and the Democrats who have been all over the place, the one thing they're doing really well is they're unified in their message," said Donny Deutsch. "No matter what they're asked. They all go back to costs and you can't — he grocery store doesn't lie. And on top of that, when you see Trump out there and he's talking about building ballrooms and you see the money his family is making." He said that it is infuriating voters.
Seeing Trump at 17 percent on anything is shocking, but Deutsch said that it simply isn't something people in politics ever see, particularly on the economy.
In a world where elections are like contrasts, Scarborough said that Democrats couldn't ask for a better contrast between them and Trump, who has been saying that the affordability crisis is a "hoax."
That contrast also exists between the affordability crisis and "Donald Trump's family," Scarborough said.
"His son's making billions of dollars on crypto, making billions of dollars, like getting defense contract loans of over $600 million for companies and and for for hedge funds that they just are — whatever they are — that they just got into the contrast of the corruption with middle Americans struggling just to get by every week who. That is a strong contrast," the host added.
