Trump's Approval Ratings Low Across The Board, Polls Show

President Donald Trump's approval rating on how he's handling North Korea has grown since he announced he plans to meet with Kim Jong Un, but even that remains below 50 percent and hasn't helped boost his overall popularity.

Related: Trump Is the Worst President, Expert Ranking Survey Reveals on Presidents Day

Among Americans interviewed over several days after Trump's announcement, 42 percent said they approved of the way Trump is handling the situation with North Korea, while 50 percent disapproved, according to a CBS News Poll released on Tuesday. It's an improvement from January, when 34 percent approved and 59 percent disapproved.

The day before the March 9-11 poll began, Trump sent an optimistic tweet about North Korea. "Great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached," Trump tweeted on March 8. "Meeting being planned!" Some of Trump's prior statements, in contrast, had been antagonistic towards North Korea.

Kim Jong Un talked about denuclearization with the South Korean Representatives, not just a freeze. Also, no missile testing by North Korea during this period of time. Great progress being made but sanctions will remain until an agreement is reached. Meeting being planned!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 9, 2018

Despite his higher North Korea approval rating, Trump's overall job approval stayed low. In the latest poll, 38 percent of Americans approved of Trump's handling of his job as president, up only one percent from January.

The president's approval rating around North Korea was even lower in a weekly POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, with 24 percent of Americans saying they have "a lot" of trust in him, 21 percent having "some" confidence, 16 percent saying they don't have much confidence and 31 percent having "no confidence at all."

Trump's approval rating around North Korea in the CBS News Poll was the highest among all categories it addressed except for the economy, in which Trump received 46 percent approval. The president got only a 31 percent approval rating on how he is handling investigations of his campaign possibly colluding with Russia in the 2016 election, and a 37 percent approval rating on how he is dealing with gun policy.

In a HuffPost/YouGov survey published Tuesday centering around his alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels, only 8 percent of Americans said the phrase "moral leader" described Trump "extremely well," 13 percent said "very well," 17 percent said "somewhat well," and a whooping 49 percent said "not at all well." The remaining 13 percent were "not sure."

The CBS News Poll randomly sampled 1,223 adults across the U.S. and had a margin of error of 3 to 4 percentage points. The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll, conducted from March 8-12, surveyed 1,997 registered voters and had a margin of error of 2 percentage points. The HuffPost/YouGov survey questioned 1,000 American adults from March 9-12 and had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.

About the writer


 A Los Angeles native, Jessica Kwong grew up speaking Spanish, Cantonese and English, in that order. Her journalism career started ... Read more

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