A seasoned Fox News political commentator offered a blunt assessment when presented with polling data showing President Trump’s poll numbers coming back down to earth. Trump, who began his term with majority approval following his contentious election campaign, now finds himself trailing his predecessors in his public approval rating as he approaches the 100-day mark of his second term – with tariffs and the economy evidently driving the drop.

‘So much of what he’s undertaken remains a work in progress and you know – they haven’t got any trade deals yet. The tariffs are out there and people are worried about them and don’t like them. We don’t know how that’s going to play out,’ said Fox political commentator Britt Hume, discussing Trump’s 44 percent approval rating. That is a point behind where Trump was at this point in his first term.

By contrast, President Joe Biden was at 54 percent, Barack Obama was at 62 percent, and George W. Bush was at 63 percent – indicating that the second-term Trump is not enjoying any kind of comparable ‘honeymoon.’ ‘We don’ know how the foreign policy endeavors are going to pan out. We don’t have peace between Ukraine and Russia , which he promised,’ Hume continued. ‘So there’s a lot of work to be completed, which if done successfully, I think would dramatically elevate his current approval rate.’

In a sign that the poll hit home, Trump raged at Rupert Murdoch’s media empire, which includes Fox, in a Thursday morning post. ‘Rupert Murdoch has told me for years that he is going to get rid of his FoxNews, Trump Hating, Fake Pollster, but he has never done so. This “pollster” has gotten me, and MAGA, wrong for years. Also, and while he’s at it, he should start making changes at the China Loving Wall Street Journal. It sucks!!!’

The Journal’s editorial page has been hammering Trump’s tariffs. Murdoch is Chairman Emeritus of Fox Corporation and News Corp, which control both outlets. The Fox poll reflects public concern with the economy – an issue that helped propel Trump’s reelection. It follows a multi-nation trade war that Trump instigated when he slapped tariffs on Canada and Mexico, then imposed a 10 percent tariff on all imports, and slapped individual ‘reciprocal’ tariffs on more than 60 countries, only to pause them for 90 days.

Markets tanked, only to shoot up on days when Trump or his team have talked up the potential for deals like they did Monday and Wednesday. The overall S&P 500 is down about 10 percent for the year. A polling average produced by the Hill has Trump’s approval just under 45 percent, with 52 percent disapproval. The Hill’s pollster, Chris Stirewalt, says he was fired from Fox News after the 2020 elections after making the controversial decision to call Arizona for Joe Biden, who won the state and the presidency.

In another troubling sign, a Reuters poll last week gave Trump just 37 percent approval on the economy. ‘He’s way down on, right at the moment on the economy and even way down further on tariffs, which are of course part of that,’ said Hume. ‘So, you know foreign policy rating isn’t good and and so on.’

He noted that the one issue where Trump had high approval was on the border – where there has been a stunning reduction in apprehensions since Trump took office. ‘Everything else, including immigration, which for some reason was separated from the border in this particular poll, a little bit underwater on immigration,’ he said. That could reflect controversy over other elements of Trump’s migration policy.

An Economist/YouGov poll had 50 percent support for bringing back Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man and Salvadoran immigrant who was deported to a notorious Venezuelan prison last month despite a judge’s order not to remove him. Although Trump lashed out at the poll, he has appeared responsive to market moves in recent days. This week he said he had ‘no intention’ of firing Jerome Powell, and spoke about lowering the 145 percent tariffs that he slapped on China.

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