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New CNN Poll: 58 Percent Call Trump's First Year A "Failure"; White House Unveils New Effort To Bring Down Electricity Costs; Trump Pushes Affordability Agenda With New Proposals; Minneapolis Tensions High As Trump Threatens To Send Troops. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired January 16, 2026 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[12:00:00]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Americans give President Trump failing grades across the board in a new second term report card.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

It is day 361 of President Trump's second term, and we've got a brand new CNN poll about President Trump's first year back in office. As our Political Director David Chalian said this morning, you really have to squint hard to find even a small piece of good news for the president.

In this poll, a majority of the country, 58 percent say President Trump's first year has been a failure. That includes two thirds of independent voters. Now, why is that? Across the board, Americans disapprove of how the president is handling every major issue. He is at 39 percent on the economy, 42 percent on immigration. Those are two of the biggest reasons that voters say they sent him back to the White House.

The economy is far and away America's top concern and has been for years. Right now, two thirds of voters say the president is focused on the wrong things, and maybe even more importantly, two thirds say they don't think he cares about people like them. It's a new year. It is an election year, and whether the White House can reverse these trend lines can be and will be critical in November.

I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters today, on this Friday. Phil Mattingly, your takeaway?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: What I find most fascinating about the numbers is, one, in the first year this administration did an extraordinary amount of things, and did so many of them through executive authority, unilateral action, pushing the boundaries of that authority to levels that we hadn't seen before. And in large part they were things that the president actually campaigned on and said he was going to do.

And I think the disconnect, at least based on the numbers we're looking at right now, and from our reporting out in the field is, voters are saying, we didn't really vote for that. We wanted the economy. We cared about prices, we cared about affordability, and we cared about immigration, in the broad sense, not necessarily in the -- what we're seeing in the interior, in the viral video sense right now.

And that has been, you know, you had a group of advisors and a president who were emboldened by an electoral victory that was without question and believe that they had a mandate. They are utilizing that mandate or pushing that mandate to a degree. We've seen this in the past with other administrations to a degree that maybe voters aren't entirely comfortable with, and at least certainly aren't right now based on the numbers we're seeing.

BASH: Yeah. And Nia, let's look at the trend line here on overall and then on those two big issues that we were talking about. First of all, overall, the president came in February, was the first time that CNN polled at 48 percent overall approval rating, which was a record high for him. It's very high for President Trump. And then you see the overall go down to where it is at 39 percent now.

The economy just starting in March, you can see that go down, and immigration also go down. I mean, obviously, as we've said the economy in this poll, and just understanding the world that we're living in is clearly the number one issue. But the fact that immigration has gone down like that for the president, who has a sort of a calling card on closing the border, and people are not looking south or maybe a little bit north. They're looking in the interior, on immigration, and obviously the economy is hurting him.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. You know, this one sort of constant theme out of this White House has been chaos, but it hasn't been chaos for good, right? It hasn't been chaos that redounded to the benefit of average American, sort of disruption that advances the goals that people have for the individual lives. It's just been chaos, right?

I mean, if you think about the beginning months of this White House, Elon Musk firing federal workers. And then there was Liberation Day, where the stock market tanked because there were all of -- all of these tariffs. And now Americans look on their screens, and they look at what's going on in Minnesota. People have all sorts of beliefs about immigration. Maybe there are too many folks who are in the interior, and they like the fact that the president has sealed the southern border.

But what they see on their screens now, it's sort of out of context. Like, why are they there? There was a Trump person who I was talking to, die hard Trump supporter, that was her question. Like, why exactly are they on the streets of Minneapolis, in this way, taking battering rams to people's houses? In some instances, obviously, they killed an American citizen as well.

[12:05:00]

And so, I think that is the problem. The through line has just been all over the place. He's constantly inundating Americans with sort of images and language, for instance, oh, maybe there shouldn't be elections. And Americans are like, how do you pay for childcare? How do you pay for healthcare? How do you pay for groceries? That is where they are, and he is somewhere else all the time. BASH: And on the election thing, I should note that the White House says that the president was joking. He is not going to cancel elections. So that's good to hear. Emily Davies, so good to have you. Welcome to Inside Politics. You cover the White House for The Washington Post, and this is something I wanted to point out and get your take on this part of the poll. Trump puts the country above his personal gain, yes 37 percent, no 63 percent. What does that tell you?

EMILY DAVIES, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: You know, I was surprised at first to see that number and recognize how many Americans are really questioning that part of the president, which I think was a real like center piece of his campaign, that people related to him, thought they saw themselves in him and vice versa.

But when I've been out in the country recently, a lot of people have proactively brought up the East Wing demolition to me, really saying that, you know, watching him do that was a concerning to the state of democracy in this country. But b, they're wondering why he's spending money on that when they're struggling.

And I think it's those tangible examples of the president's priorities that that make Americans question his intentions when his messaging is so strong and he's so used to relying on it. It's the physical examples of his money and where it's going, and his focus and where it's going that I think changed people's minds.

BASH: Yeah. I mean, it's really, really interesting. And then we can't forget Phil which, how can we, because we've been tracking them for 10 years about the president's core supporters, because there's no indication that they are going anywhere. They are, for the most part, still there. They're not the ones who made him president, but they're still there.

This is a quote from Yair Rosenberg from the Atlantic, the biggest myth about Trump's face and why many believe it. For months that crack up has failed to meaningfully materialize in polls and focus groups, and the allegations of MAGA infighting have born little resemblance to the real-world trajectory of conservative politics where Trump still reigns supreme.

MATTINGLY: If we've learned nothing else in the last decade, it's like the predictions of the crack up or predictions of the waning support amongst his core base are never going to come true. So, stop making them. I think that the point right now that is really important, and I think why these numbers should raise concerns in the West Wing is, when Trump is not on the ballot--

BASH: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- that is a problem, because his core supporters don't necessarily always vote. The extraordinary success of the 2024 campaign team, the Trump administration was their ability to bring out low propensity voters who were deeply engaged with the president himself, deeply supportive of the president himself. I guarantee you, those voters are not dissatisfied, or for the most part, I would imagine, are not dissatisfied with what the president has done. Will those voters come out in a midterm election? And why that matters is because you're going to have Republicans who -- while he still reigns supreme and he still has a iron clad grip over the party. Will start looking and have, I think, to some degree, started looking around and saying, self-preservation is important here. If my office isn't getting bombarded by phone calls saying, don't do this, instead, they're getting bombarded by phone calls about healthcare costs or affordability. Then all of a sudden, they're not as in line as they have been for the first year.

BASH: Right. So, it's those core supporters who sometimes when Trump is not on the ballot, we have seen historically interesting. Yeah, they don't go out. They don't go out. And the people who do go out are the people who are really mad at Donald Trump. And Trump political advisors are very well aware of this.

Before we go off this topic and take a quick break, Emily, I do want to put one other set of numbers on the screen, and that is the section or sectors of the electorate that President Trump did much better with in 2024. Under 35, he was at 41 percent with those people -- young people, now he's down to 30. Latino voters, he was at 41 percent in February, now he's down to 30. Black voters, he was at 23 percent in February, which is not a low number for a Republican president, down now to 14 percent.

DAVIES: Yeah. We saw this actually recently in the White House's discussion of housing policy. And inside the West Wing, there was a lot of focus on first time home buyers, understanding that that group of people really propelled him to presidency this time, young voters swung toward him, and now they are still struggling to afford homes, and it's been long enough now, and the Republican Party has enough power that they're looking to the president to fix that problem and he hasn't done it.

[12:10:00]

And so, they're hoping that this sort of broad set of housing policies that he's considering and will roll out more formally, apparently, quite soon. We'll start to address that and bring those people back to him. But there is certainly an awareness that they're moving away.

BASH: And we're going to talk a little bit more -- a lot more about this issue of affordability President Trump's favorite word in the next block. Coming up, though, abolish it, reform it, defend it. Democrats are struggling with how to talk about ICE amid the unrest in Minneapolis. We're going to ask one of the most successful messengers historically in the Democratic Party about the words he would be using. Plus, President Trump's literal power play that he hopes will power the economy. We'll explain that, coming up.

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[12:15:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK) BASH: Spiking energy costs and utility bills are just one of the economic pain points Americans are feeling right now. President Trump and a group of northeastern governors are asking the country's largest electrical grid operator to hold an auction to make tech giants pay for surging power costs.

It's just one of many ideas President Trump is floating to address the affordability crisis. He announced a $50 billion rural health program, called for a 10 percent credit card interest rate cap, ordered Fannie and Freddie to buy $200 billion in mortgage bonds, and said he would tariff rebate checks, to send tariff rebate checks rather to Americans.

My panel is back now. Phil, you're numbers and economy guy.

MATTINGLY: Yeah.

BASH: How much of what we are seeing is, you know, just kind of floating things out there and throwing things up to see what's this?

MATTINGLY: Yeah. It's like a fire hose slash blowtorch approach in the last couple of weeks, and it's tough to get a grip on what's real, what's not. And I think a lot of it is like, oh, well, that will take legislate -- like, 10 percent credit card cap. Like, that's going to happen. It takes legislation.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: Senate Republican leader is from South Dakota. Tell me the last time a South Dakota senator was like, yeah, let's do some credit card legislation. It's not a thing that happens. And Republicans have already kind of poured cold water on that. 50-year mortgage not a real thing.

BASH: Yeah.

MATTINGLY: The using the GSEs to buy back mortgage bonds has actually had a tangible effect already on mortgage rates. What they're announcing today on the energy prices is actually a fascinating area, and it's really, really interesting, both from a political dynamic in terms of having Democratic governors in these really critical swing states involved, but also it's from an intellectual curiosity standpoint.

Like when I was reading it last night, and props to Bloomberg for the scoop, like it is a really interesting and innovative idea. The difficulty here is Trump doesn't technically have the authority to force the company to do these things --

BASH: But he certainly has --

MATTINGLY: But for somebody who has used blunt force to force corporate America and entities around the world to do or to bend to his will for the better part of a year, this is a really interesting and potentially very productive way of doing it for people who, as we were just talking about, have very real concerns about energy costs that went up 10.5 percent in the first half of last year on average per household, 7 percent just for retail energy in the last -- in the month of September alone. This is a real problem and it's a really interesting way of getting at it.

BASH: Yeah. And the unspoken, and I'm sure people glean this, or they know it because it's happening in their backyards, is that part of the reason our energy bills are going up is because these data centers, which are required to power AI, in particular.

They require a lot of energy. I just want to show our viewers something that you wrote, Nia. And the headline is, maybe these affordability speeches aren't such a good idea. Almost a year into his presidency, Trump still blames and berates his predecessor for any economic pain Americans may feel. He claims a new American golden age is already here, but also stay tuned, because the best is yet to come. His biggest economic plan appears to be hoping that Jerome Powell's successor will lower interest rates.

So, that is definitely -- if you watch a Donald Trump speech, the one he gave this week, this is definitely the takeaway. The question is whether they're going to take away from that, or some of the ideas, whether they'll seek fruition or not, who knows, but some of the ideas that he's pitching.

HENDERSON: Yeah. And whether or not any of these will actually work to lessen the economic pain that Americans feel, even if Jerome Powell's successor gets on the Fed and lowers interest rate, it's not really necessarily clear what that's going to mean for the average mortgage rate that Americans will look at in terms of trying to buy a new home.

So, when the president gets up, he gives these big speeches. He was in Detroit. A, he talks about affordability, and I think he calls it a fake word. And I think that's where you get the disconnect that Americans are feeling that there is this kitchen soup, you know, kitchen sink approach, throw everything on the wall, but nothing is really moving the needle.

And in the meantime, there is this anxiety of it has been hanging over Americans heads for months and months and months, going back to Biden that Trump has not yet solved. Yet he's on these foreign adventures, whether it's trying to acquire Greenland or run Venezuela.

[12:20:00]

BASH: Emily, I want you to look at a poll number and a sort of difference that I think really speaks to what Nia was just talking about, which is hope and the lack of hope that we're seeing right now show up in these polls, especially compared to the hope that people felt about President Trump on the economy when he came into office.

Right now, the question in this poll is, economic conditions a year from now will be good. Only 42 percent say yes. But this time last year, 56 percent said yes. This time last year, when he was inaugurated for a second time. DAVIES: I think that is exactly why you see Trump and his advisors getting impatient around this issue because they've been putting out a lot of policies. He's been trying to talk about it more recently, not always, maybe as effectively as some around him might hope, but he has been, you know, he had two healthcare events this week alone. He was in Detroit that has been relatively rare for him to travel domestically this term and really speak to a crowd most focused on the economy, and yet, it's not -- it's not really landing yet.

And so, I did an informal survey of people this morning, inside the White House and just around the White House, asking, OK, it's been a week, few weeks of, like, real focus on this. Is it working? How do you all feel? And you know, I think there is one camp of people who were telling me it's one person, I think a direct quote is like, it is a terrible situation. This is going to be a nightmare for the next 11 months.

But then there are others who feel like his focus on it is increasing on affordability, which I think is a fair statement, and they're glad that he's validating the feelings that Americans have that actually the economy is not working for them and they are on it. And you know, Trump's messaging machine has been really effective in the past, so I don't think we know yet where this is going to go.

BASH: And not validating how people feel was one of the biggest mistakes of his predecessor, and why he is in the office again right now. Everybody standby. Coming up. We're going to go live to Minnesota after another night of protests. Plus, abolish ICE, Rahm Emanuel joins us to talk about how Democrats are or should respond to what we're seeing in Minneapolis.

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[12:25:00]

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BASH: Welcome back. Tensions are still high in Minneapolis today. In fact, I want to get straight to Minneapolis. You're looking at live pictures right now, and I'm going to go to Julia Vargas Jones. Julia, go ahead.

JULIA VARGAS JONES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Dana, we are just outside the Whipple Federal Building. This is the U.S. Customs and Border Protection police arresting a protestor who seems to be a person who was outside this building. We just witnessed them arresting another person moments ago, moments ago, and now they're clear. They're clearing the street.

Now, it has happened a few times, Dana, that protesters take the street, and that's when police moves in to clear the street right outside this building. Now this, I will say, is the most forceful that I've seen the federal forces be with protesters. There seemed to be one, two, three, four, five. Five, at least five agents on top of this person. Earlier, we spoke to a protestor who had a bull horn, an attorney who drove here from Chicago. He was saying, we are unarmed and exercising our First Amendment right, is what this man was saying. We've seen some flare ups today, yesterday with our colleagues. tear gas. We were pepper sprayed. But this is definitely an escalation from what we've seen so far, Dana, in a situation that just does not seem to find a way to deescalate.

BASH: Yeah.

JONES: And it's hard to -- it's hard to imagine --

BASH: Julia, I just want to ask this point. And I just want to ask you, I know you obviously can't see everything that's happening, but from your vantage point, how disruptive were the protesters being. And were they in a place that they were told not --

JONES: We saw -- we saw that, absolutely.

BASH: And what -- can you describe what happened that led up to this?

JONES: Yeah. Look, one protestor, one person who had a fox mask on, this, I believe, was right before you came to us, had a mask on and put a bull horn out. There was some music playing. I believe they set up a --

BASH: Yeah, we're showing it right now.

JONES: They said, good, OK, so that's that was the -- what triggered this? What seemed to have triggered that, Dana, is just this one protestor dancing in the middle of the street. Now, police forces have been very clear that we are -- both us media. I'm saying media and protesters are not to impede the traffic here, so not getting on the street.

We've been very careful to stay on the sidewalk. OK? Here we go. This is -- OK. Get on the sidewalk. Get on the sidewalk. We are on the sidewalk. This is how pepper spray and sun grenades have been used, Dana, to just keep this one street clear of protesters.