GOODWIN: Trump down, but not out…
Battered, bruised and beaten, Donald Trump faces a grim reality. Halfway through his term, his presidency is at low tide.
The polls have cratered and his necessary retreatover using a shutdown to get wall funding had some erstwhile supporters spitting venom at him.
His usual tormentors, meanwhile, are riding high. Nancy Pelosi drew her first blood as speaker, Chuck Schumer kept Senate Dems in line and the anti-Trump media are celebrating the president’s pain.
If that weren’t trouble enough, special counsel Robert Mueller is still scalp-hunting. His indictment of Roger Stone, while not dinging Trump directly, keeps the Russia, Russia, Russia pot boiling and gives House Dems more grist for their pile-on probes.
It doesn’t help that, ethics-wise, Stone now joins Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen in giving Trump’s former circle a resemblance to the freakish bar scene in “Star Wars.”
Post-shutdown negotiations look brutal…
Lawmakers in both parties are skeptical about President Trump’s chances of securing funding for his wall on the Mexican border after a 35-day partial government shutdown that bruised the White House’s political standing.
The deal reached last week gives Trump and Congress until Feb. 15 to reach a new deal to prevent another partial shutdown, and the president is demanding new legislation again that would fund his signature campaign issue.
Democrats seem unlikely to budget any money for a border wall, and even if they did, lawmakers say such a deal would likely require Trump to include significant immigration reforms, such as giving immigrants known as Dreamers a pathway to citizenship or permanent residency.
That would be a tough nut to crack in only three weeks, and the concessions could also damage Trump with his base.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) set the tone immediately after Trump agreed to reopen the government by declaring Friday that she will not change her stance on opposing money for a border wall, which she had previously called “immoral.”
“Have I not been clear on a wall? I’ve been very clear on the wall,” she told reporters Friday when asked whether her position had changed at all because of the decision to reopen government agencies.
President Jabs FOXNEWS… Blasts Coulter…
President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Sunday to take a rare jab at Fox News.
“Never thought I’d say this but I think @johnrobertsFox and @GillianHTurner @FoxNews have even less understanding of the Wall negotiations than the folks at FAKE NEWS CNN & NBC!” Trump wrote. “Look to final results! Don’t know how my poll numbers are so good, especially up 19% with Hispanics?”
Never thought I’d say this but I think @johnrobertsFox and @GillianHTurner @FoxNews have even less understanding of the Wall negotiations than the folks at FAKE NEWS CNN & NBC! Look to final results! Don’t know how my poll numbers are so good, especially up 19% with Hispanics?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 28, 2019
President Trump said he’s not sure what he did to draw the ire of conservative commentator Ann Coulter, who called him a “wimp” after he signed a bill that would reopen the government but does not include funding for his border wall.
“I hear she’s become very hostile,” the president told the Wall Street Journal in an interview published Sunday. “Maybe I didn’t return her phone call or something.”
Trump last Friday signed legislation that would end the 35-day partial government shutdown for three weeks while negotiations continue over his demand that Congress authorize $5.7 billion for the wall.
Coulter in a tweet accused him of caving in to Democrats.
POLL: Public sours on direction of country…
Sixty-three percent of Americans say the nation is on the wrong track, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
Major re-election challenges in Wisconsin…
With less than two years to go before the 2020 election, President Donald Trump faces an uphill climb in winning a second victory in Wisconsin, a battleground that will be at the epicenter of the next presidential campaign.
Here are three major takeaways from a statewide poll of 800 registered voters released Thursday by the Marquette Law School, its first survey since the 2018 election:
High disapproval. Right now, Trump has a precarious path to victory in Wisconsin, a state he won by less than one point in 2016. His approval rating is 44 percent — higher than it is in most national polls, but lower than it was here last fall and weighted down by the unpopular government shutdown that just ended.
More importantly, polls throughout his presidency have consistently shown that close to half the potential electorate is dug in against him. In the Marquette survey taken Jan. 16-20, 52 percent disapprove of his job performance, 46 percent “strongly” disapprove and 49 percent say they will “definitely vote for someone else” in the next presidential election. That doesn’t mean Trump is doomed to lose. But it means his window for victory is a very tight one.
In 10 Marquette polls since Trump took office, his approval rating has never topped 47 percent. The share of voters who disapprove of him has equaled or exceeded 50 percent in the past nine polls dating back to June 2017.