CBS News Poll Shows Overwhelming Positive Approval of Trump

CBS News Poll Shows Overwhelming Positive Approval of Trump

This isn’t a Fox News, One American News, or Newsmax poll.

This is a CBS News poll.

Face the Nation revealed that the results show that 53% of those polled approve of President Donald Trump’s performance in the first few weeks.

Man, oh, man. You know it had to kill host Margaret Brennan to discuss this poll. Look at these numbers:

64% of the respondents approved of sending troops to the border, but 52% of them disapproved of Trump holding illegal aliens in detention centers.

Only 13% approve of Trump’s idea to take over Gaza. 47% called it a bad idea, but 40% were not sure.

This one is tough for me. 66% said Trump isn’t doing enough to lower prices.

Here’s the thing, though. It won’t happen overnight. The CBS News article said, “Those who today expect his policies to lower prices don’t expect it to happen overnight. Many of them think it’ll take at least six months.”

I’m glad people realize that it will take time. It will happen…I hope.

When it comes to tariffs, the people only agreed with China receiving them. The majority said no to tariffs on Canada, Europe, and Mexico.

Brennan spoke to CBS’s executive director of elections and surveys, Anthony Salvanto on Face the Nation. Here is the whole transcript because it’s delicious:

BRENNAN: We begin today with our first assessment of how President Trump and his policies are doing just three weeks into his second term. Our CBS poll finds that a majority of Americans, 53 percent, approve of the job he’s doing. That’s a better approval number than he ever reached during his first term in the White House.

Joining us with more is our executive director of elections and surveys, Anthony Salvanto.

Good to see you, Anthony.

What’s driving this?

ANTHONY SALVANTO: I will keep it simple, Margaret. He’s doing, in the eyes of the public, what he said he would do in the campaign.

There’s political value in that. In fact, 70 percent of people say he’s doing what he promised. That’s whether they approve of him or not. Now, there’s another part of this that continues over from the campaign. There were words that he was described as being tough, being energetic.

And he still is today in big majority numbers. So, as people take a look in these first few weeks, there’s been a lot of activity. They’re getting that general sense of governance, and that’s being reflected in these early numbers.

MARGARET BRENNAN: So that’s perception. What about the actual policies?

ANTHONY SALVANTO: Well, let’s start with the ones that are popular.

And, again, these echo a lot of what we saw in the campaign. The idea of deporting those in the country illegally continues to be popular. We saw that in the campaign. Sending troops to the U.S.-Mexico border, again, majority in favor. We’d seen that in the campaign.

For his supporters in particular, the focus on ending DEI is popular. We had seen in the campaign a lot of them thought those processes had gone too far. There are some other things in here that get more mixed reviews, I will add.

The idea of the U.S. taking over Gaza is not seen as a good idea.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Something he floated at a press conference this past week.

ANTHONY SALVANTO: He did, but it also gives you a little insight into how people are processing Donald Trump and what he does, because then, for a lot of his supporters, they say, well, that’s not really his goal. That’s a negotiating tactic.

And then, on tariffs, those are not as popular. Those are things that the majority – with the exception of the ones on China.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Why?

ANTHONY SALVANTO: People think it will raise prices. And that’s important context here too, because people are still sensitive to price increases. A lot of them report that prices haven’t gone down.

Remember that Donald Trump won the election on inflation, and that was a big reason. And what we find now is two-thirds of people saying that they don’t think the administration is focused enough on lowering prices. And that stands out as one of those big gaps when you talk about initial preferences, initial expectations and what’s getting delivered.

That’s certainly going to be something to watch.

MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, that’s interesting, because, throughout the campaign, he was abundantly clear that tariffs were something he wanted to use. And we talked quite a lot about possible impact on inflation.

I know you also polled on President Trump’s work with Elon Musk and this so-called DOGE, Department of Government Efficiency.

MARGARET BRENNAN: We’re all kind of learning what it is. What do people think of it?

ANTHONY SALVANTO: Well, exactly on that point, we’re all sort of learning this, so I think this will take a while to play out.

Initially, you get very partisan responses on the role that Elon Musk should or should not play. You get a majority of Republicans saying he should have at least some influence, though it’s more of the MAGA base that really wants him to have a lot, and a lot of Democrats in opposition.

Part of this is, too, the broad goals of cutting spending, of cutting foreign aid have things that have long been in the polling popular with Republicans. But in terms of the impact and approach, that may take a while for people to really see it play out.

MARGARET BRENNAN: How you do it. And we will be talking about that ahead on the program.

Anthony, thank you.

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