Bulwark Takes - NEW POLLS: Trump’s Approval Has Collapsed

Episode Date: July 31, 2026

President Trump’s approval rating is collapsing, and new polling shows voters are increasingly unhappy with his handling of the issues that matter most: the Iran war and the economy. Sarah Matthews gives her take on the three new polls showing Trump stuck in the low 30s, with voters questioning his decision to launch military action against Iran, his broken promise to avoid new wars, and his failure to deliver on his pledge to lower costs. Trump is out of touch with everyday Americans and the numbers paint a grim picture for the White House heading into the midterm elections.Join at https://functionhealth.com/BULWARKTAKES and use gift code BULWARKTAKES25 for a $25 credit.

There's no shortcut for saving time, but saving money is simple. Just combine your car and home insurance with Bel Air Direct and save. Get a quote at bellair direct.com. Hey guys, it's Sarah Matthews and welcome back to Bullwork Takes. Over the last few days, several polls have come out and all three show just how unpopular President Trump is right now. Trump's approval is stuck at anywhere between 32 to 34% right now, depending on which poll you're looking at. And I would say there's two big reasons for that.

You have the Iran War, his war of choice that he launched, which the American people really don't understand why we're fighting them and why we attack them in the first place. And it seems like Trump has no way to resolve this conflict. And then you have the economy, something that Trump said that he was going to fix on day one and bring down prices. And all we've seen is the cost of everything from groceries to gas skyrocket under his watch. So when you look at these three polls, first off, you have the CNN poll, which has him at 34% approval rate. Now, to put this into perspective, this ties Trump's post-January 6 low. So that's how bad things are for the American people right now, that they think that it's on

par with what he did after January 6th. Then you look at this AP poll, 33% approval on par with where he stood in his first term and similar to Biden's approval when inflation peaked. And then you have the Quinnipak poll, which has him at 32% approval, which an all-time low for him in that poll specifically. And when you dive deeper into the numbers, particularly on the Iran war, you can see nearly six months in just how unhappy the American people are with him going back on his campaign promise. Keep in mind that Trump was the guy who said he was going to be the peace president,

that there would be no new wars, that he wouldn't get us into some endless Middle East conflict. We had no wars. I could stop wars with a telephone call. I could stop wars with just a telephone call. And obviously, that has been the opposite of what has transpired during his second term. And the American people aren't happy about it. You look at this Quintapal, 60% opposed the Iran military action with only 34% supporting.

That's the lowest support slash highest oppositions since Quintapac started tracking in March. And in that same poll, 74% opposed sending ground troops, only 19% support. And 66% say that this was. wasn't worth starting this conflict, while 31% say it was worth it. Now, when you look at the AP poll, two thirds say the war, which started on February 28th, has not been worth fighting. And in the CNN poll, 67% say the Iran war is hurting the U.S. This message is brought to you by Function Health. So August is National Wellness Month. You may not have known that. I hadn't known that, but it is. Most health trends just mean buying random gadgets and guessing what actually works.

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The best part is, once the results come in, I can see them all on the function platform and get better guidance for my health. God knows I need it. Very busy, but function helps me with all that. Check your health the way I do. Function provides 160 plus lab tests for $1 a day. member pricing on advanced imaging. Join functionhealth.com slash bulwark takes and use gift code bulwark takes 25. Keep in mind that when you look at how long it took the Obama administration

to negotiate the JCPOA, you know, that deal that Trump tore up during his first term, it took them nearly two years to negotiate that deal. And so I have a really hard time believing that Trump is going to be able to negotiate a better deal than the JCPOA in a shorter time frame than that, especially with an Iran that feels emboldened right now. They see that they're able to control the Strait of Hormuz and inflict pain on the U.S. and the world economy as a result. And so it's almost more powerful to them to know that they can do that than them even having a nuclear weapon. And it seems like the American people also believe that this is going to drag on according to polling.

In the Kinnapak poll, 55% now say that they think it will last a year or longer, up from just 32% in April, which is a 20% spike in pessimism. And the CNN poll, 37% say months, 21% say years, and only 9% say days slash weeks, while 33% aren't sure. So it's not just me who's being a pessimist. It seems like Americans across the board think that this conflict is just going to drag on. It's also the Republicans. They are upset as well when you break down the polling. In the AP poll, even 37% of Republicans say that the war hasn't been worthwhile.

And in that same poll, Republican approval of Trump's handling dropped from 71% to 61% as it relates to the war. And in the Quinnipac poll, Republican job approval of Trump fell from 85% in June to 76% in July. It's no surprise that Republicans are upset. with this because the MAGA coalition was sold on no new wars. And looking at the numbers, we've now spent $37.5 billion on a war that no one wanted and there's seemingly no end in sight. And I don't think that the Trump administration has done a good job of messaging this war to the American people. They don't understand why we're attacking them, why we're spending billions and billions of dollars. And again, I have a really hard time believing that Trump is going to be able

to get us to a better place after this conflict is resolved than we were at before. And it's not just the wrong. The economy is dragging Trump down too. When you look at the polling in the Kinnapak poll, 71% rate the economy, not so good or poor. In the CNN poll, 65% say Trump's policies have hurt the economy, something I've been talking about, and we've been talking about here at the bulwark. You look at everything from the Iran War, spiking gas prices or his disastrous tariffs that have caused the cost of everything to go up. And you know, you would think with people being so upset about the economy right now and being able to afford to be able to buy a home or put food on the table for their families or fill up their gas tank, that Trump would be a little bit more

empathetic about this. But no, what's his response to all of this? To say that affordability is a hoax. You know, we inherited it and then I had my first news conference a day after I took office. And they said, affordability, affordability, they go, that's a fake word that they use. They cause the affordability problem. So while Trump is calling affordability a hoax, Americans are taking notice of just how little he seems to care about the priorities that they care about. In the CNN poll, a record 73% say Trump hasn't paid enough attention to the country's most important problems. Only 27% say he has. In that same poll, 75% say he's out of touch with problems. Ordinary Americans face daily. Okay, guys, no shit. The guy's a billionaire and probably hasn't stepped foot in a

grocery store or filled up his own gas tank in decades. So needless to say, he's out of touch right now with the affordability crisis that's happening in this country. And also, he's, lacks empathy too, so there's that. But in the Quintapac poll, 68% say he's not focused enough on the problems ordinary Americans are facing. And we know what his priorities are, whether that be the ballroom, the arch, the reflecting pool, his renovations at the White House, he talks about these things in nearly every single appearance or Oval Office press conference that he gives. And this week, he has even more little pet projects that he's been focused on. He announced a renovation of Dolos Airport and airport just outside Washington, D.C. I will be honest, as a D.C. resident myself,

I have to admit that I'm kind of happy about the renovation of the DOLUS Airport, but I can understand how this looks out of touch to the everyone else, everyone else across the country who isn't maybe flying into D.C. or a D.C. resident. This is not something that Americans had at the top of their priority list. And he is particularly focused on this. And it's not just this renovation, of the airport. It's also gold statues. I know. He's throwing even more gold across the city. Obviously, we've all seen the Oval Office and how he's turned it into Tmu, Versailles, with the gold throw-up everywhere. But you have these statues that are on a bridge in Washington, D.C., that according to notice reporting, we spent as taxpayers $5 million to cover in gold leaf. I guess these

statues back decades and decades ago, they were initially covered in gold and were bright gold. But I don't think that this was, again, anyone's top concern was trying to make these statues bright gold again. It just shows how out of touch he is. And no wonder voters think that, and that's reflected in this recent polling. And we're less than 100 days until the midterm elections. And the state of play is not good for Republicans right now. In the CNN generic ballot, Democrats led by eight points over Republicans, and today Sabato's Crystal Ball changed their ratings for 13 House seats toward Democrats. And in the Senate, a Fox News poll found Democrats up across the board. John Osseth, up by 13 in Georgia, Roy Cooper, up by nine in North Carolina, Sherrod Brown,

up by eight in Ohio, and Josh Turrick up by four in Iowa. Republicans don't just have a messaging problem. They have a math problem. Their voters are staying home while it seems like everyone else is fired up. Now, if you like takes like this one, make sure to like this video and subscribe to the Bullwark channel.