Trump Approval Continues To Slip

Two new polls are out this week, neither of which contains much good news for President Trump, although Americans do seem open to persuasion.

A YouGov survey of 2,489 adults done for CBS News drills down on the administration’s increasingly bellicose stance toward Venezuela. It also delves into three domestic issues: inflation and the economy, deportation policies, and the Jeffrey Epstein case.

The other poll, by the Pew Research Center, is an ambitious effort exploring how Latinos in America view a sweeping array of topics.

If the YouGov sample is representative, Donald Trump is clearly underwater in public opinion – for a variety of reasons. For starters, by a margin of 60%-40%, Americans express disapproval with the overall job Trump is doing in his second stint as president.

Economic worries seem to be fueling this drop in confidence. On March 2, 51% of respondents approved of Trump’s handling of the U.S. economy. In the new CBS poll, this figure is 36%.

One-third of those surveyed say inflation and the economy are the most important concerns when it comes to judging Trump’s performance. Of this cohort, more than three out of four said Trump is not spending enough time addressing the economy. The word “tariffs” wasn’t mentioned in this question, but it didn’t have to be: 65% of poll respondents said Trump’s policies are making grocery prices go up.

The results of another question suggest that a solid majority of Americans believe Trump is either trying to fool them about the state of the economy – or is out of touch himself. Six out of 10 say the way he describes inflation doesn’t reflect reality.

In other significant findings:

Asked about the prices of groceries, 58% U.S. adults say food prices have been rising in “the last few weeks.”

As regards the Jeffrey Epstein contretemps, fully 82% of Americans say that releasing more information is either “very” or “somewhat” important.

The president’s immigration and deportation policies are not playing in Peoria, to use the old Vaudeville expression. Americans disapprove of his approach on this issue by a margin of 55%-45%. This topic reveals stark partisan faultlines: 90% of Republicans support his aggressive deportation program, while only 13% of Democrats feel the same. But he has lost most independents on deportations by the tune of 58-42

Some 54% of respondents say ICE is stopping and detaining “more people than necessary.” Meanwhile, disapproval of Trump’s immigration policies is bleeding into perceptions of how the administration is handling the economy.

America First

The real news in the CBS study centers on Venezuela. Here, Americans’ concerns do not fall strictly along partisan lines. On the contrary, there is a general consensus among Democrats, Republicans, and independents that the president still has some ‘splainin to do.

Asked, in the context of possible U.S. military intervention in the formerly prosperous South American nation, three-fourths of Americans say Trump has not adequately described what he’s up to.

It's also clear that he just hasn’t closed the sale. When asked if Venezuela is a threat to national security, 39% said it wasn’t, while 48% termed it “a minor threat.” Only 13% termed it a “major threat,” raising a portentous hypothetical: What percentage of Americans can be counted on to rally around the commander in chief, if it comes to war?

Meanwhile, a solid majority of U.S. adults – 70% – say they are opposed to military intervention in Venezuela. And yet, the response to one question suggest that Americans are receptive to the principal rationale Trump has cited while beating the tom-toms of war: Asked whether they back Trump’s policy of using military force to attack boats suspected of smuggling drugs into the U.S., support for Trump’s policies rose sharply: Americans still said no, but by a close margin: 53%-47%.

¿Y nosotros?

The Pew Research Center interviewed nearly 5,000 Hispanics in a new report exploring Latinos’ perspectives on their current situation in the second Trump administration. It found that this rapidly growing demographic, which surged unexpectedly to the Republican ticket in 2024, is growing disenchanted with both his immigration policies and his handling of the economy.

The survey of 4,923 Latino adults conducted in October 2025 finds that about four in five Latinos in the U.S. say Trump's policies harm Hispanics. His disapproval rating among Latinos has risen to 70% – 10 points higher than the CBS/YouGov poll of all Americans and a higher number among Hispanics than during his first term.

Most ominously, according to Pew, Hispanics “are pessimistic” about their current standing in America, with more than two-thirds saying that their situation today is worse than it was when Trump was elected a year ago.

“This is the first time that most Hispanics say their situation has worsened in nearly two decades of Pew Research Center Hispanic surveys,” the report said. Here are some of the reasons why:

About half of Latinos surveyed say they have struggled to afford food, housing, or medical care in the past year.

Six in 10 say Trump administration policies have exacerbated the nation’s economic woes.

• Immigration policy is also a concern, as seven in 10 Latinos find the Trump administration’s deportation policies too aggressive – up from 56% in March.

• Slightly more than 52% of Latinos worry they or someone close to them might be deported. This is 10 points higher than when Trump’s second term began.

• To be sure, there is a partisan component to these answers among Latinos, just as with other Americans. Latino Republicans’ views of the economy have grown more positive, for example, while Latino Democrats are more negative since last year.

This last data point suggests, as does the YouGov question about Trump’s communications regarding Venezuela, that this president has an opportunity to explain his policies to a candid world – if he’ll take it.