Americans have clear opinions on Trump’s performance in his first 50 days

On the eve of his 50th day back in office, President Donald Trump is touting that America is “back.”

Trump, seven weeks into his second tour of duty in the White House, highlighted in an interview this weekend on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures” that he and his administration were moving “at a very rapid pace.”

“50 WINS IN 50 DAYS: President Trump Delivers for Americans,” the White House touted in an email release on Monday, as it touted Trump’s accomplishments — some of them controversial — since his Jan. 20 inauguration.

But the most recent national polls indicate Americans don’t have such a rosy view of the Trump presidency, and are divided on the job he’s done so far.

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Trump’s approval ratings were underwater in three surveys – from Reuters/Ipsos, CNN and NPR/PBS/Marist – which were conducted ahead of the president’s address last week to a joint-session of Congress. It was the first major primetime speech of his second administration.

But Trump’s approval ratings were in positive territory in other new polls.

And Trump, who has long kept a close eye on public opinion polling, took to social media on Monday to showcase his “Highest Approval Ratings Since Inauguration.”

While Americans are split on Trump’s performance, the approval ratings for his second term are an improvement from his first tour of duty, when he started 2017 in negative territory and remained underwater throughout his four-year tenure in the White House.

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But there’s been a bit of slippage.

An average of all the most recent national polls indicates that Trump’s approval ratings are just above water. However, Trump has seen his numbers edge down slightly since returning to the White House in late January, when an average of his polls indicated the president’s approval rating in the low 50s and his disapproval in the mid 40s.

“Keep these numbers in perspective. The numbers he’s averaging right now are still higher than he was at any point during his first presidency,” veteran Republican pollster Neil Newhouse told Fox News.

And Newhouse emphasized that Trump’s Republican “base is still strongly behind him.”

Daron Shaw, a politics professor and chair at the University of Texas, also pointed to Trump’s rock-solid GOP support.

“He never had support among Democrats in the first administration, but he also had some trouble with Republicans,” Shaw, who serves as a member of the Fox News Decision Team and is the Republican partner on the Fox News Poll, spotlighted. “That’s one acute difference between 2017 and 2025. The party’s completely solidified behind him.”

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The president has been moving at warp speed during his opening seven weeks back in the White House with a flurry of executive orders and actions. His moves not only fulfilled some of his major campaign promises, but also allowed the returning president to flex his executive muscles, quickly putting his stamp on the federal government, making major cuts to the federal workforce and also settling some long-standing grievances.

Trump as of Monday had signed 89 executive orders since his inauguration, according to a count from Fox News, which far surpasses the rate of any recent presidential predecessors during their first weeks in office.

Those moves include a high-profile crackdown on immigration, slapping steep tariffs on major trading partners, including Canada and Mexico, and upending the nation’s foreign policy by freezing aid to Ukraine and clashing with that country’s president in the Oval Office.

“He has flooded the zone with his policies and he’s thrown Democrats into disarray,” Newhouse said.

And pointing to lackluster favorable ratings for the Democratic Party, Newhouse highlighted that Trump’s “numbers may be slightly slipping, but it sure as heck hasn’t gone to the Democrats.”

While he’s in a better polling position than during his first term, Trump’s approval ratings are lower seven weeks into his presidency than any of his recent predecessors in the White House.

Shaw noted that neither Trump nor former President Joe Biden “started out with overwhelming approval. This is not like the honeymoon period that we historically expect presidents to enjoy…. Historically, the other side gives you a little bit of leeway when you first come in. That just doesn’t happen anymore.”

Biden’s approval rating hovered in the low- to mid-50s during the first six months of his single term as president, with his disapproval in the upper 30s to the low- to-mid-40s. 

However, Biden’s numbers sank into negative territory in the late summer and autumn of 2021, in the wake of his much-criticized handling of the turbulent U.S. exit from Afghanistan, and amid soaring inflation and a surge of migrants crossing into the U.S. along the nation’s southern border with Mexico.

Biden’s approval ratings stayed underwater throughout the rest of his presidency.

“He just got crippled and never recovered,” Shaw said of Biden.

There are some warning signs for Trump.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll indicated that just one in three Americans gave the president a thumbs-up on his handling of the cost of living.

Shaw emphasized that inflation, the issue that helped propel Trump back into the White House, remains critical to the president’s political fortunes.

“If prices remain high, he’s going to have trouble,” Shaw warned.