Bulwark Takes - NEW POLL: Trump Approval COLLAPSES to 33%

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

JVL and Sarah Longwell give their takes on the shocking new UMass poll showing Donald Trump at just 33% approval, only one point away from the “Bush line.” As the Iran war drags on, gas prices rise, and inflation worsens, they dig into what’s really driving Trump’s downfall and whether it signals real movement with voters. Plus, they react to Brendan Carr openly celebrating media firings as a political “win” for Trump and what it says about power, influence, and the future of the press.

Hello, everyone. This is JVL here with my best friend, Sarah Longwell, publisher of the bulwark. And Lordy, we got a poll, shock poll, as they say, from UMass. Donald Trump approval rating, March 26, 33 approved, 62 disapprove, negative net. carry the, 29. Holy shit. Megan Kelly. Five alarm fire. Sarah, this is, I mean, I'll let you say the catchphrase.

We are one point away. One point away from the bushline. From what? There you go. It's coming. There it is. You know, I was on spring break last week when all of the polling came out. Okay.

Everybody had a poll last week. CBS had a poll. Like Fox News had a poll. tanking and all of them. This is one of the most negative ones from UMass, Samhurst. But I think also it's coming out just a little later than some of those other ones. Right. So I do think we are going to see a tail as Iran continues as gas prices stay high, get higher as inflation. We get like increasing news about the economy, inflation. You know, like all of that stuff. I couldn't believe I wasn't here last week to talk about it. It made me so upset that I was missing it, but I was watching

it saying, well, we're not at the bushline yet, so I don't have to be on the pods. But this new, this new poll, look, one poll is one poll. These are good pollsters, though. They, they are tracking against themselves. I think they were, it was at 44 percent. Do the numbers right in front of you? Yeah, I do. So in April 2025, 44-51, in July of 2025, 3856, and now 33-62. Last week, Kinnipiac had him at 38 approve, 56 disapprove. So not a lot better. Not a lot better, right? Now, this is, I mean, can we get through some of the cross tabs?

Yeah. On attacking Iran is putting America first, 27% net agree. Yikes. Attacking Iran will increase oil prices. 79% net agree. I mean, it's bad. It's bad. The United States should send ground troops into Iran, 8%.

The good news is I don't think we're going to send ground troops in. I think the This Morning's Truth Social tweet in which he said there's a brand new regime in Iran. And they're so much smarter and wiser and more friendly to America. That is condition setting. And so he's claiming that we've achieved regime change. And then he said, you know, so long as they open the straight, so he only put one condition on it, we just have to return to the pre-war status quo. That strikes me as a guy who's really looking at a declare victory.

Yeah, although the Dow is up today because they think I guess the Fed is not going to raise rates. But I was waiting to see what the market did after. It seemed interesting to me that this tweet came just a couple hours before markets were to open after a really bad Friday. After four weeks of losses, I do think Trump's, I have really quickly, we have not talked about this tweet. And that wasn't even what we were supposed to talk about. but I just want to say at the open, the fact that we are conducting our foreign policy by 7 a.m. rambling bleats from our president in a normal world, in a world that existed 10 years ago, just what he did today alone, the way he is conducting foreign policy by tweet, would be disqualifying.

It would be unthinkable. So I just sometimes I think we're so a nerd to how this stuff is getting done. but his tweet today said, we're very close to reaching a deal. We have this new regime that we're talking to. No evidence of that. We've seen, no. You do have to wait for, like, the Iranians to confirm it to know whether or not what our own government is saying is true. But, like, then he says, and if they don't, we're blowing up all.

Like, once again, he started a clock on us blowing up their entire energy infrastructure. And desalcala, desalization. And so these things are war. crimes. And like we can talk, we have like a slightly larger conversation about that if you want. But again, the president of United States is saying, oh, and by the way, if we don't get what we want to do here, we're going to do war crime. Yeah, that's right. No, like on so many levels of what happened this morning. Yes.

Ten years ago. Barack Obama does that. He's impeached by four o'clock in the afternoon. Can you imagine any other president just with these all caps. all hours making savor rattling and saying we have a deal. Like there was both market manipulation contained therein as well as war crimes, as well as threats of escalation. Like, it's all bananas.

It doesn't surprise me, nor should it surprise anybody, that he is declining in popularity. And JVL, I want to ask you back, because sometimes I think people feel a sense of there's nothing. And I think it's fair for some people to say 33%, 38%. That still feels too high for what we're living in. But considering the level of polarization that we've lived through, considering how durable, even his outer layer of support has been, not even like the base base, America First MAGA types, but that kind of outer layer, do you feel like you're seeing movement?

Like you're a kind of C, nothing matters, no one will abandon him type of, what do you think? Does it make you feel like there's actually movement from people? I mean, there's clear movement. And there has been clear. I mean, you just track from January 2025 through today. And there has been absolutely observable, undeniable movement downward. I get caught in a little bit like, hey, it isn't enough.

This needs to be better. And when we talk about, you know, in the age of polarization we live in, to me, that is like saying, You know, well, you have to understand that we're drowning. So, of course, we can't get enough oxygen. Like, that age of polarization has to break. And if it can't break, then we're screwed. You know, like, I, you know, like at some point, if you can't get down to 32, 30% when all of the outcomes are so terrible. Here's an interesting cross tap from this is approval of women sitting at 29%.

by education, high school degree or less, this is the UMass Amherst poll, down from 42% in July to 33%. Now, again, you don't have to believe that it's actually a 33%, but it is moving downward. Yes. And they had his approval by African Americans sitting at 8% single-ded. His polling has been dismal. In fact, he's starting to be underwater with white men. Like, white men are like the one thing this guy can usually count on. But his numbers on the economy, on inflation, on affordability are a disaster.

And I don't know if you saw this today, but Axios reported that the GOP was weighing healthcare moves to pay for the Iran war, right? And so they're basically taking the one issue that Democrats are more popular than Republicans on very reliably health care and say we're going to raid that to pay for this deeply unpopular war, which, by the way, Donald Trump promised he was going to be the peace president. Do you see, because as I was on break, I was watching the news thinking, boy, this really is getting away from him. Like the Iran thing is they are, he has not, does not seem to have found an off ramp. When he tweeted that this morning, I was like, what is his actual off ramp or is this just market manipulation? What is, what did you think when you saw that? His off ramp is offering them enough that it becomes worth their while to let him off the hook. And I am confident that he can do that.

I am confident that there is enough sugar for him to give them, starting with the ending of sanctions and then going through some other things, right? He can issue some meaningless security guarantees. They can issue some meaningless promises not to develop nuclear weapons that both sides can go back on. But the big thing is the sanctions. And the sanctions are already lifted right now. And so he doesn't even, he can even say it's no change, which would be true, right? Like, he's not going to put the sanctions back in place. And so then that allows the Iranians to exit this, just again, just objectively, in a stronger position for the long haul than they were.

I think he has some coalition management to do. He'll have to really figure out how to finesse the Israelis and the South Carolina. Saudis who are going to be not super happy with this, but he's got to get out and he's got to give Iran whatever Iran wants in order to let him get out. And by letting him get out, I mean to agree to just once he's gone reopen the straight. And I think they're likely to do that. I mean, they've been pretty cagey and pretty sophisticated throughout this war. They hit a bunch of hit an AWACs, I think, and hit a bunch of refuelers. on the tarmac. So, I mean, again, their intel has been pretty good.

And there's sophistication in hiding drones and their expenditure of munitions rate. There has been, again, like they didn't just shoot their wad right off the bat. The first one. This has been a deep humiliation for America. And in a weird way, I mean, the sooner Trump pulls the plug, the better. Like, it won't be good. Yeah, that's right. For America. I mean, for him also, but for America. And I mean, look, he's getting ready to invade Cuba anyway. So, you know, so he does Cuba in two weeks and then, you know, all is forgotten.

And is all forgotten, though, because it, everything that I've seen says that the supply chain disruption that has happened is already. Because this is the one thing I'll say, and I probably should have said this on front. Because it's the main piece of analysis, I think that we should really focus on, which is personal. consequences for people right now are that Trump has not lowered any of their costs. Things are getting more expensive. Gas is more expensive. Products are going to be more expensive. And that that is the thing. That is the thing that voters are going to hold Trump accountable for. And his numbers are likely going to keep going down even if he gets out of this war.

Well, things won't be better before the midterms. That's right. Yeah. is kind of the, he has put himself in a, in a position now where he's got to get out as fast as he can. And even then it won't be enough for a period of time. Yeah. I mean, so it is possible that things will be moving in the right direction by the midterms, but they won't be back to normal.

They won't be back to pre-war. And there is the possibility that you wind up with, I mean, this is Catherine Rempell territory. But people who study private credit markets are a little freaked out. and the private credit markets suddenly are looking a little bit like the people who are bundling tranches of very bad subprime loans right before the Great Recession. It is possible that this disruption causes a larger slowdown, which isn't just about logistics, and tips us over to actual real deal recession. And the economy was quite weak going into the war, you know, very, very limited job growth,

almost flat job growth. The Fed was looking to cut rates because the economy was slowing so badly. But the war creates upward pressure on energy prices, which creates upward pressure on inflation. I think the OECD was saying that looking at 4.2% projected inflation for this year, which, I mean, if you're the Fed, that makes you very, very anxious about cutting rates. I think they'll probably leave the rates as they are. Well, that's what it looks like the Dow has gone up just a bit, basically. on the promise that the Fed wasn't going to start raising rates again. So if they just leave them because they had priced in a rate cut.

And so now this is why we're going to see a correction. But I think that the market, like the fact that it was that it has been so manipulated by Trump, I think that it's got to start pricing in the fact that things are not going well. Like it has been untethered to reality now for a while. and it's only now starting to look slightly more tethered. But when I saw his tweet this morning, I'm like, is the market going to buy this? Is the market going to buy that there's, oh, no,

it's almost definitely resolved, except maybe we're going to bomb the crap out of them. I mean, you know, the market is really about what's happening in two minutes, right? It's the market is about flash trading. And, I mean, the broader risk is like the AI companies that are propping up the entire American stock market right now. If the combination of private credit and inflationary pressures on energy costs and access to silicon from Taiwan all make it to the AI bubble pops, I mean, God knows what's happening right. We have a SpaceX.

There's another thing that's coming down. SpaceX is having its IPO in June. It is, everybody is like losing their minds over it. They're like, it's going to debut over a trillion dollars. It's going to be a trillion dollar company on day one. and the biggest IPO of all time. And I mean, if there's a market correction going into that, right? I mean, you could just see it as being a cautionary tale that we all look back on four years from now.

Or maybe not. Maybe it'll all be fine and it'll debut and it'll be a $2 trillion company. But, man, there's a lot of headwinds mounting. And he's not out yet, right? He's not out yet. He's not out yet. which is the main reason for doing this take about this poll, which is to say if this is the first of the next batch kind of of polls and we're starting to see him in the low 30s, that starts to be a real new territory. Now, on the other hand, it's not all bad news for him.

Over the weekend, Brendan Carr was at CPAC and he had this to say. And President Trump is winning. Look at the results so far. PBS defunded. NPR defunded. Joy Reid gone from MSNBC. Sleepy Eyes, Chuck Todd, gone. Jim Acosta, gone.

John Dickerson, gone. Colbert is leaving. CBS is under new ownership, and soon enough, CNN is going to have new ownership as well. I cannot believe this. You'll have to remind me. True conservatism believes that the chief executive should be involved in the HR matters of private companies, right? Right. It should be winning for the president to force private companies to fire the employees that the president doesn't like? Or is that communism?

Do you know who was livid at the idea that the federal government would interfere in any way in the business dealings of these companies? A guy named Brendan Carr when he was mad at Joe Biden for like, I don't know what, but no, like it was like they, I don't know, they tried to, I think they did something with Sinclair. And I don't know. Maybe Brendan Carr was right about that. Maybe they shouldn't have been mucking around in it. But that's weird that this same guy now is giddy, giddy at the idea of getting random anchors fired from MSNBC. Also, I don't think Trump really had anything to do with that, but maybe I don't know. But in any event, what was the most telling to me, this is the kind of thing that just happens in the natural course of things now that it's like that tweet. where I'm like, this should be insane. This should be the kind of thing.

The FCC chair gloating and calling people fake news and sleepy-eyed Chuck Todd. What is happening? This was, again, a quasi-an independent agency. But the thing that struck me the most, and I know this is in your territory here, the idea that his idea of Trump winning was CBS being taken over by Ellison and Barry Weiss. If I was Barry Weiss, the level of humiliation that I would feel, the level of undermining that I would feel at the idea that the FCC chair is saying quite blatantly, these guys are doing what Trump says and look how Trump is winning because they now run CBS. The idea that Trump winning is explicitly connected to Ellison and Barry taking over CBS and then CNN should be shameworthy of. anybody running a media company.

I mean, you know, not when you're heterodox and you're just out there being fair and fearless. And also, I'm not a doctor, but I have heard that shame and humiliation are often cured with money. You just take money and you rub it. You rub the money on your shame and humiliation and the shame of humiliation. And the shame of humiliation just goes away. Supposedly. Never tried it myself. All right.

Yeah. So that's what's happening. Donald Trump is losing the American people, but he is consolidating the media behind his cronies and is using the power of the central government and the legal system to bend the media ecosystem to his will. I would say that this is a pattern that we've seen in places like Hungary, where Victor Orban is incredibly unpopular amongst actual people, but has successfully. taken over the universities and the media and so is really trying to hang on to power. Maybe it won't happen here. Sarah, thanks for being with me. Everybody else, hit like, hit subscribe, follow the channel.

Leave a comment. Tell us how happy you are that Sarah is back. And we'll be back on the next level tomorrow. Good luck, America.