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Voters are evenly divided over Trump’s handling of the economy, with 46% approving and disapproving, his best net rating on the issue in a month, according to our latest tracking survey, which also found his overall approval ratings on the upswing. As we inch closer to the president’s Aug. 1 deadline for the ratification of dozens of tariffs, Reuters reports that the European Union has delayed the implementation of their own retaliatory levies, while The Wall Street Journal wrote yesterday that the “race is on to build U.S. copper mines” following Trump’s threatened 50% import tax on the metal. |
That’s the share of Republican voters who approve of Pam Bondi’s job performance as attorney general, similar to the share who approved of Trump’s decision to nominate her to the role ahead of his inauguration. Amid a firestorm over the administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files, the president is standing by Bondi, The New York Times reports. |
Just 1 in 4 voters say the Trump administration should make reducing the size and scope of the federal government a “top priority,” tying record lows. That relatively low interest from the electorate comes as the Senate prepares to take up Trump’s rescissions package this week (more below), and after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the White House to shrink the Education Department, a process Trump said will begin shortly, The Hill noted. |
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WHAT WE'RE WATCHING THIS WEEK |
Rescissions The Senate is hoping to take up a procedural motion as soon as today to rescind $9.4 billion in funding, including billions for international assistance and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, according to Roll Call, which flagged that “GOP leaders sounded far from certain on Monday afternoon that they had the minimum votes needed to agree” to move forward. If they’re successful, that would set up amendment votes later this week as Republicans face a midnight deadline on Friday to advance Trump’s request on a partisan basis. Trade U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick are planning to meet today and tomorrow with House Ways and Means Committee Republicans as markets react to Trump’s tariff news, Politico wrote. Wall Street’s relatively placid reaction to last week’s developments suggests “investors expect that the administration will likely ratchet the higher rates back down after negotiations with the target countries,” the outlet added. “Crypto Week” House Republicans have labeled it “crypto week,” Axios reported, as they look to advance the Senate-passed bill GENIUS Act to regulate stablecoins, market structure legislation and a bill that would “prevent the Fed from ever creating a digital version of official U.S. currency.” Taken together, Axios writes that the legislative effort would “grant further legitimacy to an industry that has made the president and his family sudden billions of dollars.” House Democratic leaders are not expected to whip against the crypto bills given the division within the caucus over the issue, per Politico. Arizona special Five Democrats are competing today in an Arizona special election for the party’s nod to replace Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), who died in March. Per The Hill’s preview, “the primary has turned into a three-way race,” with the late congressman’s daughter, Adelita Grijalva, racking up several endorsements. |
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A MESSAGE FROM MORNING CONSULT |
Tracking Public Opinion of Trump's Washington Morning Consult is tracking what voters across the country think about how President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress are governing the United States ahead of the 2026 midterm elections. Each week, we’ll update this page with fresh and timely data on all of the major questions facing Washington. See the data here. |
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Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem has recently taken on an increasingly prominent role as the face of the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Los Angeles and its response to the devastating flooding along the Guadalupe River in Texas. The attention hasn’t all been positive, but our tracking of public opinion of her job performance suggests that any negative coverage hasn’t really moved the needle. Our latest survey shows voters are roughly split on her job performance, which was also the case at the start of the Los Angeles protests in early June. |
Shares of voters who approve or disapprove of Kristi Noem job performance as secretary of Homeland Security: |
Noem’s standing among Republican voters and the wider electorate is largely in line with that of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Bondi, two other officials who have faced similar scrutiny at various points in Trump’s second term. The stability in voters’ perceptions of Noem underlines the lack of public pressure on Cabinet officials this year, similar to what we saw with Hegseth during the so-called Signalgate saga. In Noem’s case, even concerns about the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s response to the Texas flooding, highlighted by a Friday report from The New York Times that said the DHS agency “did not answer nearly two-thirds of calls to its disaster assistance line,” did nothing to move her numbers. Similarly, while Trump’s numbers on immigration have dipped a bit in recent weeks, Noem’s approval rating hasn’t. This suggests that, at the end of the day, it’s Trump — not his deputies — who gets the credit or blame for his administration’s actions as long as he’s willing to stand by them, explaining why those Cabinet officials work so hard to stay in his good graces. |
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The Justice Department's announcement last week that there was no rumored Epstein “client list” and that officials would not release investigatory files sparked public backlash from distinct portions of the MAGA base, many of whom sounded perplexed by Bondi’s reneging on a promised release of “truck loads” of new information. It’s had little impact on Trump’s approval rating and doesn’t appear to have hurt Bondi, either. But that doesn’t mean voters — including Republicans — have faith in the Justice Department’s finding. |
Shares of voters who believe the Justice Department is being honest and transparent by saying … |
A slim majority of voters (51%), including a 41% plurality of Republicans, said they do not believe the Justice Department is being honest and transparent about its assertion that there’s no evidence of a client list or blackmail scheme involving Epstein and prominent people. Voters are less likely to question the Trump administration’s conclusion that Epstein committed suicide in prison in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, though they’re still more likely to espress skepticism than trust (42% to 35%). Republican voters are almost evenly divided on the question, with 40% believing that Epstein died of suicide — higher than the 33% of Democrats who said the same. The level of skepticism toward this administration’s stance on Epstein is similar to what we found when we asked about the Biden administration’s explanations in December for the origin of mysterious drones flying over New Jersey and other parts of the country. However, more voters were sure of how they felt about the drone issue than the Epstein questions, and Democrats then were more trusting of the Biden administration than Republicans are today of the Trump administration. (Relatedly, The Washington Post reports of a MAGA divide that bubbled up at a conservative student summit over the weekend.)
While that’s not yet weighing on the president’s numbers, it does highlight a risk — especially given Democrats’ efforts to keep the issue front and center with “long-shot efforts to force a House vote” on requiring Bondi to release all records related to Epstein, according to Axios.
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