WASHINGTON — House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) suggested Tuesday that the American people are having an irrational yet understandable “emotional reaction” to President Donald Trump’s early moves in his second term.
“In any new administration, it’s a roller coaster. When you come in and you make dramatic change — which is what he did, he’s delivering on the promises made — there’s some bumps along the road,” Johnson said Tuesday in response to a question about Trump’s bad poll numbers.
A Fox News poll last week put Trump’s approval rating at just 44% — 5 percentage points lower than in March, lower than at the 100-day mark for former presidents Joe Biden, Barack Obama, George W. Bush and slightly worse even than for Trump himself in his first term.
Trump’s plan to tax imports has hurt the stock market and could lead to higher prices and possible shortages on a range of products, with economists of all political persuasions warning the tariffs could slow the entire economy and potentially even cause a recession. Consumer confidence has already cratered.
Johnson said the last four years under Biden, which saw low unemployment but high inflation, were so bad that Trump had no choice but to take drastic action.
“So when you’re doing that, it’s disruptive in a way and in the early, initial, people ― they have an emotional reaction sometimes for the big changes, but what they’re seeing and what the real polling is showing is that they understand that we’re headed somewhere,” Johnson said.
Trump promised during the campaign to “immediately bring prices down, starting on day one,” but has not done so, with overall inflation holding steady above 2% and food prices up 3% over the year following slight increases in February and March.
This month, Trump announced massive tariffs on most U.S. trading partners, then lowered the tariffs in response to tumbling prices for stocks and bonds.
“Tariffs and tariff uncertainty are wreaking havoc on our supply lines and capital spending plans,” one food manufacturer said in a survey released this week by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
In the Fox News poll, 71% of voters said the economy is bad, with respondents saying Trump is hurting rather than helping by a 22-point margin — a shocking swing after concerns over inflation helped land Trump in the White House in the first place.
Johnson acknowledged the economic turmoil but said voters can see Trump’s “master strategy” at work.
“There’s been a little question and concern about, you know, the rocky start, some of the stock market, some of the tariff policy and all that, but right now, even today, people are beginning to see the dust settle on that,” Johnson said. “They understand there was a master strategy behind this and they’re seeing the results.”
Other Republicans were also ready to scapegoat Biden for Trump’s bad polls.
“I’m surprised it’s above 10 because he’s got to make decisions,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) told reporters. “I mean, the last president we had didn’t make any decisions. He’s having to make a lot of decisions nobody likes, but that’s the reason we elected him.”
Igor Bobic contributed reporting.