Trump’s Disapproval Hits New High as More Voters Blame GOP for Shutdown

Those leaves were green when the shutdown started.
Reuters
By Yuval Rosenberg and Michael Rainey

Happy Monday! This promises to be a hugely important week in American politics. The government shutdown is about to set a sad record. Tuesday's elections could shift the way the two parties see the political landscape. And the Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether many of President Trump's tariffs are legal. Trump has been publicly pressing the court to uphold his import duties and expand presidential power - though he backed away from the idea of showing up at the high court session. "Next week's Case on Tariffs is one of the most important in the History of the Country," Trump wrote on his social media site Sunday night.

Here's your evening update.

Shutdown Poised to Set Record as Longest Ever

The government shutdown, now in its 34th day, is set to make history this week as the longest ever, and its effects are growing more painful, with millions missing food aid and airport delays mounting.

Trump insists he won't be 'extorted': In an interview with CBS News's "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday night, President Donald Trump gave little indication that he was looking for a deal. "Democrats' fault," he insisted when asked about the shutdown, adding, "They've become crazed lunatics." Trump also insisted that he would not be "extorted by the Democrats who have lost their way."

Democrats are demanding that expiring subsidies for Affordable Care Act insurance plans get extended to prevent premiums from soaring. Trump said he'd work on a healthcare fix but insisted that Democrats should first reopen the government. "We should fix that. We should fix it," he said. "And we can fix it with the Democrats. All they have to do is let the country open and we'll fix it."

Asked where his healthcare plan is, Trump circled back to blame the Democrats and former Sen. John McCain, who famously cast a vote against repealing Obamacare. Trump said Democrats would eventually have to give in and vote to reopen the government, and he again called on Senate Republicans to end the filibuster.

What could change this week: As the shutdown stalemate drags on with little engagement from Trump, informal Senate negotiations reportedly have given lawmakers reason to be hopeful that a deal to end the shutdown may be achievable, perhaps even this week.

Some also hope that Tuesday's elections will change the five-week-old dynamics of the standoff. The results of the balloting will be closely watched for what they say about voter sentiment, and some Republicans believe that Democrats will be more likely to end the shutdown once Election Day has passed.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters Monday afternoon that bipartisan talks among rank-and-file lawmakers continued over the weekend, and he is "optimistic" that lawmakers can reach a deal this week to end the shutdown.

"Based on my gut and how these things operate, I think we're getting close to an off-ramp," Thune said. "The objective here is to try and get something that we could send back to the House that would open up the government."

Any bill to reopen the government at this point would have to extend federal funding beyond the November 21 date Republicans set in the measure passed by the House in September. Republican leaders are reportedly eyeing a new deadline sometime between late January and March.

Trump Admin Will Partially Fund SNAP - but It Could Take a While

The Trump administration said Monday that it will partially fund the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program using a $5.3 billion contingency fund, but it could take weeks or longer for the money to start flowing to roughly 42 million beneficiaries.

About $4.65 billion of the contingency fund will go directly toward benefit payments, enough to cover about half the amount scheduled to be paid to SNAP beneficiaries in November. The remaining $600 million will go toward state-level administrative expenses and food aid for Puerto Rico and American Samoa.

The announcement came after a federal judge on Friday ordered the White House to use the contingency account to fund the food aid program, despite protestations from the administration that it lacked the authority to do so.

In a statement filed with the court, Patrick Penn, a Department of Agriculture official who oversees SNAP, said the administration would deplete its contingency fund. "This means that no funds will remain for new SNAP applicants certified in November, disaster assistance, or as a cushion against the potential catastrophic consequences of shutting down SNAP entirely," he said.

Penn explained that his department must notify states that the November payments will be reduced, and the states must then "recode their eligibility systems to adjust for the reduced maximum allotments" - a process that could take time to complete.

"There are procedural difficulties that States will likely experience which would affect November SNAP benefits reaching households in a timely manner and in the correctly reduced amounts," Penn said. "Given the variation among State systems, some of which are decades old, it is unclear how many States will complete the changes in an automated manner with minimal disruption versus manual overrides or computations that could lead to payment errors and significant delays."

Separate fund untouched: The administration said it would not tap a separate fund dedicated to child nutrition and school lunches containing roughly $23 billion to cover the full cost of the November SNAP payments. Penn said that any transfers from the fund could put those aid programs at risk in the future.

Some Democrats and anti-hunger activists have called on the Trump administration to make use of those funds, which come under the Section 32 Child Nutrition Program. Sen. Amy Klobuchar, the senior Democrat on the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, said the Trump administration should tap the funds to pay November SNAP benefits in full.

"The courts have ordered the administration to use its contingency fund to partially cover food assistance to families in need this month - and have made clear it can use its transfer authorities to fully fund SNAP," Klobuchar said in a statement. "It is not enough to do the bare minimum - the administration should stop playing politics with hunger and use all available resources to ensure Americans can put food on the table."

Trump's Disapproval Hits New High as More Voters Blame GOP for Shutdown

As the shutdown drags on and President Trump makes news on a variety of other fronts, a trio of new polls find the president's disapproval ratings climbing to new highs and offer reason for Republicans to be concerned.

  • CNN: The poll, conducted by SSRS, found that 37% of U.S. adults approve of Trump's performance as president and 63% disapprove - topping the 62% disapproval rating he received in January 2021.
  • NBC News: Forty-three percent approve, 55% disapprove. More than half in the NBC survey, 52%, had a negative view of Trump, compared to 40% who had positive feelings about him.
  • Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos: Forty-one percent approve, 59% disapprove, again the highest disapproval rating in a Post-ABC poll since January 2021, shortly after the attack on the Capitol. Among independents, Trump's disapproval came in at 69%.

Bearing most of the blame for the shutdown: The NBC News poll found that 52% of voters blame Trump and congressional Republicans for the government shutdown, while 42% blame Democrats in Congress and 4% blame both sides. But each party's supporters blame the other side for the shutdown, perhaps hardening their stances in the standoff. "Each party could look at this data and say, 'Let's not blink,'" Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, who conducted the survey with Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, told NBC News.

Disappointing on the economy: The CNN poll found that 68% of adults said things are going badly in the country. While 47% called the economy and the cost of living the most important issue facing the country today, 72% called the economy somewhat or very poor. More than 60% said Trump's policies have worsened economic conditions, up from 51% in March.

Similarly, just over six in 10 respondents in the NBC News poll said the country is on the wrong track, up from 54% in March. And about two-thirds of voters in that poll say that Trump has fallen short of expectations when it comes to the economy, inflation and looking out for the middle class.

The Post-ABC survey found that 67% of voters said the country is on the wrong track and 62% disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy. More than half of voters said the economy has gotten worse since Trump returned to office, compared with 27% who said it has gotten better. Nearly two-thirds disapprove of Trump's signature economic policy, his imposition of tariffs.

But Democrats don't fare well, either: Only 28% in the NBC poll said they have a positive view of Democrats, while 53% were negative. More than one in five Democrats said they view the party negatively. And the percentage of voters blaming Democrats for the shutdown in the NBC survey was higher than in previous shutdowns over the last 30 years.

The Post-ABC poll found that 68% said the Democratic Party is out of touch with the concerns of most people in the United States today, higher than the 63% who said the same about Trump and 61% who felt that way about the Republican Party.

The Republican Party was also underwater, but by a smaller 37%-46% margin. Overall, 57% of voters said they would vote to replace every single member of Congress, including their own representatives.

The CNN survey was from October 27-30 among 1,245 respondents. The overall margin of sampling error is 3.1 percentage points. The NBC News poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters from October 24-28. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. The Post-ABC poll surveyed 2,725 adults online, also from October 24-28, and has a margin of error of 1.9 percentage points.

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