Like the stock market this week, President Donald Trump’s approval rating is sliding downward.
The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll on Friday showed Trump’s approval rating at 48 percent – down from the high water mark at the start of his term of 56 percent.
On April 1 – the day before his ‘Liberation Day’ tariffs were announced – he still had a a positive approval rating of 51 percent.
In recent days, it slid to 47 percent, before slightly moving up to 48 percent Friday.
At the same time, his disapproval is at 50 percent.
Still, 32 percent of Americans ‘strongly approve’ of Trump’s moves, while 41 percent ‘strongly disapprove.’
That gives him a Presidential Approval Index of -9.
Those numbers come the same day that the University of Michigan announced that consumer sentiment has plunged 11 percent, to a preliminary reading of 50.8 percent – the second-lowest reading on records going back to 1952.
President Donald Trump’s approval rating has been ticking downward since his April 2 Liberation Day tariff announcement, Rasmussen polling showed
President Donald Trump’s Presidential Approval Index sat at a -9 on Friday, with 32 percent of Americans ‘strongly approving’ of Trump’s moves, while 41 percent ‘strongly disapproved’
April’s numbers are even lower than anything during the Great Recession period of between late 2007 and 2009.
A Gallup comparison finds that Trump’s numbers are worse than President Joe Biden’s during this point in Biden’s presidency, but higher than where Trump sat during his first term.
Gallup puts Trump’s current approval rating at 43 percent.
Biden’s was 54 percent at this point of his presidency, while in 2017 Trump’s approval rating sat at 40 percent.
President Barack Obama was at a much higher 63 percent months into his presidency in 2009.
Gallup’s latest poll was conducted in early to mid-March, so Trump’s tariff announcement hasn’t been baked in yet.
Trump originally announced worldwide 10 percent tariffs – and reciprocal tariffs on countries he said were ripping off the U.S. – during a Rose Garden ceremony on April 2, which he dubbed ‘Liberation Day.’
He wanted the announcement to be taken seriously, so decided against having it at the start of the month – April Fool’s Day.
President Donald Trump unveils reciprocal tariffs he planned to place on countries all over the world during his April 2 ‘Liberation Day’ event in the White House Rose Garden
Those tariffs went into effect this Wednesday at 12:01 a.m.
But then mid-day Wednesday, Trump dramatically called off the reciprocal tariffs, keeping the 10 percent global tariffs in place, but also escalating his trade war with China.
The markets reacted positively on Wednesday but then took a downward turn on Thursday, once the reality set in that the global tariffs were here to stay for now.
Trump continued to cheer on his tariff policy Friday morning, amid his falling poll numbers.
‘We are doing really well on our TARIFF POLICY. Very exciting for America, and the World!!! It is moving along quickly,’ Trump wrote on Truth Social.
The president was expected to head to Walter Reed National Medical Center in Maryland for his annual physical Friday morning – before flying to Florida to spend another weekend at the ‘Winter White House,’ Mar-a-Lago.