Trump is facing more troubles
Sees stagflation, judicial contempt and low polls
By: Susan Page
USA Today
..... Trouble?
..... President Donald Trump's got it
..... You know you have a problem when the warning by a federal judge - that he sees "probable cause" your administration has commuted criminal contempt - wasn't the worst news you got April 16. [2025]
.....
The worst news was the matter-of-fact remarks by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell that the president's tariffs were "highly likely" to fuel inflation and could slow growth. He didn't use the word, but that's the combination dubbed :stagflation" when it struck the Jimmy Carter administration.
..... While voters judge president on many things, they almost always put at the top of the list managing the economy. Indeed, President Joe Biden;s failure to address inflation quickly enough or effectively enough was of of the factors most responsible for his ouster form the White House by Trump.
..... Now, two weeks after Trump celebrated his new sweeping tariffs with what he called "Liberation Day" on April 2, 2025] critics say he is encountering the-chicken-come-home -to-roost day.
..... Of course, Trump has regularly defied political gravity since he announced a presidential bid in 2015 that almost no one took var seriously. He won the White House and has been the defining force in American politics ever since.
..... Neither controversy nor criminal convictions nor flurries of fact-checking nor even the January 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol has prevented him from triumphing, eventually.
..... That is an asset that is about to get tested.
..... This time around, though, the issue isn't Trump's personal behavior or his provocative rhetoric. It is the number that millions of Americans see when they check the value of their 401(k) accounts after the stock market;s current roller coaster.
.....
Or, in some cases, when they are afraid to check what retirement investments are now worth.
Handling the economy plunge
..... Trump's job-approval rating have been on a slide.
..... In the Economist/YouGov survey, he started his second term in modestly postie territory, 49% approve and 42% disapprove. But in the a test poll, that's flipping to 43% approve and 51% disapprove, a swing of 14 points before he reached his 100th day.
..... The erosion in views of his handling of the economy have been a bit worse, now negative by 10 points, 51% to 41%. a significant red flag: Among those who voted for him in 2024, 75% approved of him on the economy in late March; now 66% do.
..... That said, Americans continue to approve of Trump's handling of immigration, 50% to 40%.
..... Which helps explain why, at the close of a turbulent day, the White House added a late afternoon press briefing with a surprise guest. That turned out to be Patty Morin, the mother of a Maryland woman who was killed by an immigrate who came to the United States illegally form El Salvador. A jury on April 14 [2025] found him guilty of murder and rape.
.....
The mistaken deportation of another Salvadoran migrant, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, has become a new flash-point in Trump's presidency, but one the White House welcomes.
Angry town halls
..... But ignoring a court warning may be different, politically.
..... Chief U.S. district Judge James Boasberg on April 16 [2025] said he was considering whether to begin contempt of court proceedings against the administration. he said they demonstrated "willful disregard" for his March 15 [2025] order barring the deportation of Venezuelan alleged gang members based on the wartime Alien Enemies Act.
..... In Fort Madison, Iowa, on April 15, [2205 concern about whether Trump would defy the Supreme Court was one of several issues that have voters heckling Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley at an angry town hall.
..... "Are you going to bring that guy back from El Salvador?" one man shouted amid scattered applause. He's got an order from the Supreme Court and Trump just said 'no.' "
.....
The six-term Republican from the reliably red state got an earful about the impact of tariffs on farm exports, about the threat of potential cuts to Social Security and about Trump's leadership generally.
..... He was one of the few Republicans who is holding town halls during the two-week congressional recess. The chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee warned his party against participating in these forums.
.....
Since the rise of the Tea Party movement in 2009, rowdy town halls have become a sort of early warning system about where the energy, and the anger, of political sentiment is going.
..... The precedent's current squeeze isn't the aftermath of some natural disaster or foreign crisis.
..... It's the result of his success in pursuing tow of his biggest priorities: imposing tariffs, which he has been advocating as an economic elixir since he was a real-estate developer in the 1980s; and using every possible tool to reduce the number if immigrants who are in the country illegally, including those that push the boundaries of his executive powers.
..... As a result of the tariffs, Powell told the Economic Club of Chicago, unemployment is likely to go up as the economy slows. Some of the tariff burden is going to b e "paid by the public," he said, though the extent of price hikes isn't yet clear.
..... Powell had warned that the Fed's fundamental goals, of maintaining stable growth and maximum employment, could be "intension." In that case, he said, the central bank would have to make "what will no doubt be a very difficult judgment" about what to do.
..... The White House, too.