Musk takes a chainsaw to Trump approval ratings
By: EJ Montini
The Arizona Republic
USA Today Network
..... Where are co-president Elon Musk and his snotty-nosed band of pubescent hackers when President Donald Trump need them?
.....
You'd have thought that with all the whiz-bang computer skills Musk claims hes nerd bros posses, they'd have been able to weasel their way into the data collection systems of some big time pollsters and jack up the numbers for the co=commander in chief.
..... But I guess not.
.....
According to the most recent Gallup poll, Trump is the least popular president in more than 70 years.
..... Or, as the company put it on its website: "Trump's job approval rating is 15 points below the historical average for all other elected presidents in mid-February since 1953.
..... Gallup continues: Bill Clinton has the next lowest mid-February rating for a newly inaugurated president - which, at 51%, is six points higher than where Trump is now.
..... "John Kennedy (73%) and Jimmy carter (71%) were the highest rated at this point in their presidencies."
..... Ouch!
.....
Six percentage points below Clinton puts Trump's approval rating at - wait for it - 45%.
..... And just when you would like to brush that off as fake news (knowing, of courts, that Trump will try to do that anyway), another big poll comes out with - you guessed it - the same approval rating.
..... A Washington Post/Ipos poll also finds that only 45% of Americans approve of the jibe Trump is doing.
..... And for Elon, the numbers are much worse.
..... Only 34% approve of what Musk is doing in his non-elected job. Only 26% are OK with him shutting down government programs he thinks are unnecessary
.....
And 63% don't like his marauders gaining access to federal government databases containing Social Security, Medicare and tax information.
..... In addition to all that, more than half of Americans, 57%, say Trump has exceeded his authority since taking office.
Enough with the chainsaw
..... And all this is before Americans have begun to feel the potential harm that could be done to their helaht, their safety and their pocketbooks by the wholesale slashing of government agencies that is going on under musk's watch and with Trump's approval.
..... And Musk is bragging about it.
..... He took to the stage last Thursday [02/27/2025] at the Conservative Political Acton conference outside Washington, D.C., wildly waving a chainsaw given to him by Argentine President Javier Milei.
..... Ask yourself this: Exactly how comfortable would you feel if the boss at the company you worked invited some random guy with a completely different business background to improve your company's efficiency, and he entered the office like that>
..... EJ Montini is a columnist at the Arizona Republic, where this column originally appeared. you can reach him at ed.montin@arizonarepublic.com