TUESDAY: Budget bill, war with Iran poll poorly!

TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 2025

We'd call it a dangerous time: On the one hand, it could look like a piece of encouraging news. At Mediaite, Joe DePaulo reports that President Trump's budget bill seems to be polling poorly. We've edited the headline:

Trump’s Budget Bill [Performing Poorly] in Two New Polls

The “Big, Beautiful” budget bill backed by President Donald Trump is a polling loser, two new surveys show.

A poll published by the Washington Post Tuesday shows just 23 percent of Americans support the legislation, while 42 percent oppose it. The good news from the poll for Trump—if there is any—is that a large segment of the populous is still on the fence, as 34 percent say they have no opinion about the bill.

But a poll from KFF (formerly known as the Kaiser Family Foundation) shows views about the bill are more entrenched. The KFF poll shows 64 percent hold unfavorable views on the bill, while 35 percent have a favorable opinion.

[...]

Though the Post poll found some voters could be convinced, the bad news for President Trump is that the more people learn about the bill, the less they like it. Among those who say they have heard a “great deal or a good amount” about the bill, 64 percent oppose it, while 33 percent support it.

In the one survey, 34 percent of respondents said they have no opinion on the bill. In the other survey, just one percent of respondents seem to be on the fence.

So it can sometimes go with polling! Meanwhile, consider this:

 Within the internals of the Post survey, 66 percent of respondents say they have heard "a little" or "nothing at all" about the budget bill. In part, that's because of the endless stream of distractions with which the Trump administration is sometimes said to be "flooding the zone."

(Forty percent of respondents said they've heard only "a little" about the bill. An additional 26 percent said they've heard "nothing at all.")

The budget bill seems to be polling poorly. In a separate survey, the emerging Trump stance on military action against Iran also seems to be polling poorly:

Whopping Majority of Americans Oppose US Military Involvement in Conflict Between Israel and Iran

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A new Economist/YouGov poll this week shows that Americans are not too excited about the US getting involved in Israel and Iran’s fighting.

According to the results, just 16% back US involvement while 60% say the US should not be involved. Another 24% said they were unsure.

The numbers in this pair of surveys may point to a dangerous time. We can imagine the president becoming even more erratic, possibly even more aggressive, if his basic polling profile seems to be in steep decline.

That said, his recent posts about Iran seem to have rocketed off in the direction of open military involvement.  Last evening, he posted this strange recommendation:

Everyone should immediately evacuate Tehran!

For the record, Tehran's population is roughly nine million. It would be hard to get everyone out.

Today, in a trio of subsequent posts, President Trump seems to be announcing unequivocal U.S. ownership of the military actions against Iran. That includes veiled threats about possible plans to "take out (kill!)" that nation's "so-called Supreme Leader."

"Our patience is wearing thin," one new post says. "Thank you for your attention to this matter."

Full disclosure! Some people would support overt American attacks against Iran. Other people would not.

There's also the question of the possible erratic behavior of this particular president. With that in mind, Jon Stewart has finally asked the relevant question:

What the f*ck is wrong with that guy? 

Stewart posed the question last night—except he was talking about Mike Lee! Then too, there's the basic matter of tone.

Could something be wrong with President Trump? We've been posing that question for a long time now. Something almost surely was wrong with President Biden. Is it possible that something—presumably, something different—could be wrong with President Trump?

Tragically, we regard that as a basic question. That said:

Within the realm of possible political discourse, it almost surely helps if you can ask that question with an empathetic tone, as opposed to throwing it out as an insult. (Presumably, it helps even more if you can actually mean it when you adopt that tone.)

Is something wrong with President Trump? If so, a time of declining political standing could imaginably be an increasingly dangerous time—or possibly not, of course.

Colby Hall has reported those latest aggressive posts. You can peruse them here.