SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
We're going to turn now to Ron Elving, senior contributor, of course, longtime observer of national politics. Ron, thanks for being with us.
RON ELVING, BYLINE: Good to be with you, Scott.
SIMON: I want to ask you - a new poll just out, about a year into Donald Trump's presidency, it finds that 58% of those polled think his first year of his second term has not been a success. Fifty-six percent find the fatal shooting of Renee Good an inappropriate use of force, and less than a third say that ICE operations have made America's cities safer. What do you see in these findings?
ELVING: A lot of warning signs for a second-term president facing a fall that brings midterm elections for Congress. And it's not only CNN. The same message comes from other media polls and academic polls. The Associated Press works with people who compile a great deal of public opinion data. Their latest poll shows some erosion, even among Republicans, on some issues. Immigration was his best issue all last year, but even that's underwater for him now. Just 38% approve of his handling of immigration since the last ICE raids in that poll. Yet what is most striking is the disapproval on parts of Trump's foreign policy. It's rare to see any national polling question get a 60% negative response. But the idea of taking Greenland by force is opposed by nearly 70% of Americans.
SIMON: And given these poll numbers, why do you think almost no change in course from the White House a year in?
ELVING: There have been some efforts to vary the program, if not really change course. The president has changed tactics on household affordability as an issue, saying it's something to take seriously, proposing means of lowering home prices. In response to other controversies, the president has backed off on some of his threats. He hasn't struck Iran yet. He has not declared a state of emergency in Minnesota, as we just heard from Kat. But I'm reminded of two three-word phrases that we heard a lot in the first Trump term. One was flood the zone, and the other was audience of one. Flood the zone meant that if there was a bad story in the news, the best way to handle it was to blow it away with a flurry of actions or statements that were sure to grab attention.
So whether the bad story is the Epstein files or the battles over ICE, we are suddenly seeing lots of unexpected stories. We mentioned Greenland and the tariffs, and now the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Jerome Powell, is being investigated. We mentioned the Minnesota governor and mayor of Minneapolis being investigated, possibly charged with obstructing, but no investigation yet for the ICE agent who shot an unarmed woman four times in that city. And as for the audience of one, it's clear that much is said and done in this White House and this administration with just one mind in mind.
SIMON: What signals do you see about this administration's plans for Iran?
ELVING: Those plans are not entirely clear at this point, but the president has sent an aircraft carrier battle group to the area and done a lot of saber-rattling, not unlike what he did before the incursion into Venezuela. Late in the week, the president backed off a bit on this one, too, after Iran withdrew its threatened mass executions of protesters. The death toll is already in the thousands there. But both the mullahs in Tehran and the president in Washington seem to have heard from allies and partners in the Arab world and elsewhere, all trying to lower the tension, prevent a U.S. strike, and one argument being that such a strike would worsen the situation without solving it. And those entreaties may have been heard and heeded, at least for the moment.
SIMON: Finally, this week, Ron, what are your thoughts on the Nobel Peace Prize that President Trump seemed to acquire this week?
ELVING: The Nobel Committee made it clear the prize was still María Corina Machado's to keep but not to give away. She did give the president the medal that went with the prize. That was surely a measure of how much she wanted to please and placate the president and a measure of her willingness to sacrifice for her cause and, we might add, a measure of her savvy in dealing with a certain audience of one.
SIMON: NPR's Ron Elving. As always, a pleasure to talk to you, my friend. Talk to you later. Take care.
ELVING: Thank you, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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