Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, a newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
On the one-year anniversary of President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, Steve Kornacki compares his poll numbers to those of his recent predecessors at similar points in their tenures. And our White House team runs through some other key numbers from Trump’s first year back in office.
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— Adam Wollner
Where Trump stands in the polls one year in
Exactly one year after his inauguration, President Donald Trump’s standing with the public is about as low as it’s been during this second term.
According to the Real Clear Politics national polling average, Trump’s approval rating sits at 42.4%. That’s barely above the 42.3% mark that he sank to at one point last November. And it’s a far cry from the early months of last year, when Trump actually enjoyed a net-positive rating. Now, with his disapproval at 55.6%, his popularity is well underwater.
This puts him in similar territory to where he was a year into his first term at the start of 2018. That year would end with Trump and his party suffering a midterm drubbing that flipped control of the House back to Democrats. His approval rating now is in range with other recent presidents who saw their party lose the House as well.
Meager numbers, of course, were a feature of Trump’s first term as well. He’s a polarizing figure who has never amassed broad popularity; only rarely across both terms has his approval average ticked above 50%. A large segment of the electorate — well over 40% — seems locked in against Trump, while another large chunk is locked in for him.
But there are some voters who fall between these two camps. And with them, Trump appears to have taken two significant hits during his second term.
The first came last fall. Just after Labor Day, Trump’s average approval hovered around 46%, but by the end of October it was closer to 42%. Given how much of the public is dug in one way or the other when it comes to Trump, that four-point drop was significant. And it came amid the government shutdown that Democrats precipitated — but that swing voters clearly held Trump and Republicans responsible for. The Democratic election victories in Virginia and New Jersey last November further confirmed this.
By the turn of the calendar, Trump’s approval had ticked back up a bit. But in the last two weeks, with the news dominated by the ICE controversy in Minnesota and Trump’s renewed push to annex Greenland, it has returned to that low level.
📊 Related read: Ben Kamisar and Bridget Bowman break down Trump’s poll numbers on the economy, immigration, foreign policy and other key issues.
Trump's first year back in office by the numbers
Courtesy of our White House producers Sarah Dean and Megan Shannon, here are a few notable numbers that help tell the story of the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term.
229: Trump signed 229 executive orders over the past year — far more than his recent predecessors and the first year of his first term, when he signed 55 orders. Joe Biden signed 77 executive orders during his first year in office, and Barack Obama signed 40 executive orders in the first year of his first term and 20 executive orders in the first year of his second term.
The only modern president to have signed more executive orders in the first year of a term was Franklin D. Roosevelt, who signed 381 orders during the first year of his third term.
88: Trump issued 88 individual pardons aside from the group of roughly 1,500 convicted Jan. 6 rioters he pardoned on his first day back in office. Over half of those 88 pardons were for white-collar offenses.
8: Trump took eight trips out of the country, visiting 13 countries: Italy, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Canada, Netherlands, Scotland, United Kingdom, Israel, Egypt, Malaysia, Japan and South Korea.
56: Trump also made 56 domestic trips outside of the Washington, D.C., area, including 18 trips to Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., and 9 trips to Trump National Golf Club Bedminster in New Jersey.
106: Trump paid 106 visits to his various golf properties.
100: Trump participated in more than 100 news interviews. By comparison, Biden participated in five interviews during his first year in office.
13: Trump attended 13 professional or collegiate sporting events, including last night’s college football national championship game between Indiana and Miami.
👀 Related read: Trump expresses frustration and says his team has made ‘some mistakes’ after one year in office, by Jonathan Allen
🗞️ Today's other top stories
- 🇬🇱 Arctic ambitions: Trump shared texts exchanged with world leaders and insisted there was “no going back” in his campaign to seize Greenland. Asked at a press briefing how far he’ll go to acquire Greenland, Trump said, “You’ll find out.” In addition, global markets plunged as Trump reignited fears of a trade war over the Danish territory.
- 🌎 Across the pond: House Speaker Mike Johnson told the British Parliament he had come to “calm the waters” between the U.S. and Europe even as Trump derided Britain’s “stupidity.” Read more →
- ➡️ Minnesota update: The Justice Department has sent subpoenas to Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey and others as part of an investigation into whether state officials conspired to impede law enforcement during the Trump administration’s immigration operations. Read more →
- ➡️ Minnesota update, cont.: Trump said that people who work for Immigration and Customs Enforcement are “going to make mistakes sometimes.” Read more →
- 📝 Epstein saga: Yesterday marked one month since the deadline for the DOJ to release all its files related to Jeffrey Epstein, but only a fraction of the records have been made public. Read more →
- ⚖️ SCOTUS watch: A majority of Supreme Court justices indicated that a Hawaii gun law dubbed the “vampire rule,” which limits people carrying firearms onto private property, infringes on the Second Amendment. Read more →
- 💲 Shutdown watch: Congressional negotiators in both parties released a massive bill aimed at fully funding the government ahead of a shutdown deadline on Jan. 30. Read more →
- ⚜️ Bayou State brawl: Rep. Julia Letlow launched a GOP primary challenge against Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana after picking up Trump’s endorsement over the weekend. Read more →
- 🚼 Baby on board: Vice President JD Vance and his wife Usha announced they are expecting their fourth child. Read more →
That’s all From the Politics Desk for now. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Owen Auston-Babcock.
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