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Today, we’re examining Americans’ attitudes toward President Trump’s governmental agency cutbacks, as well as public opinion in Russia toward the United States.

Agency cuts receive little popular support

Comfortable majorities of voters would preserve or expand funding for the Department of Defense, the Department of Education, the National Institutes of Health, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Half would do the same for funding of the United States Agency for International Development.

Support is lower among Republicans, but more of them than not back at least maintaining current funding for every government entity tested except for USAID, which the DOGE project has already sought to fold into the State Department.

Read the full analysis

Related: Very Few Voters Back Medicaid or SNAP Cuts Targeted by House GOP’s Budget Plan

Russians have been warming to America in recent weeks

This is an excerpt from Counter/Consensus, our bi-weekly geopolitical briefing.

Net favorability toward the U.S. among Russian adults has been on a sharp upswing since Feb. 12, when the Trump administration announced that Trump himself held a “lengthy and highly productive” phone call with President Putin. The feeling is largely — but not entirely — mutual. Among U.S. adults, net favorability toward Russia has rebounded gradually since shortly after the war began, such that sentiment is now on par with levels observed just prior to the war’s outbreak. 

For U.S. companies keeping an eye on the rapidly progressing negotiations — and specifically for those thinking through what an end to the conflict could mean for their prospects of regaining a foothold in the Russian market — improving Russian sentiment toward the U.S. is a positive sign, in light of our earlier work showing a strong relationship between views of U.S. companies and of the country itself amid the war’s onset. While U.S. sentiment has not benefited from the same near-term rebound as Russian sentiment, the fact that views of Russia have now returned to prewar levels suggests that American multinationals’ domestic stakeholders (i.e. U.S. consumers) may not be especially miffed about their future decisions to re-enter the market, even if they hold misgivings about the territorial underpinning of a future peace agreement.

Read the briefing

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ICYMI

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