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American Morning

Gallup Poll: Bush Approval Ratings Basically Unchanged

Aired April 25, 2001 - 09:07   ET

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

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
LEON HARRIS, CNN ANCHOR: As President Bush nears the end of his first 100 days on Sunday, the political pundits out there are busy critiquing his performance so far. But what does the public think about how the president's doing?

Well, joining us now from Princeton, New Jersey, with some answers to that one is Gallup Poll editor-in-chief Frank Newport.

Frank, long time, no see. Good to have you back with us.

FRANK NEWPORT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, GALLUP POLL: Thank you. Good to be with you, Leon.

In a democracy, the people are the ultimate pundits, so I'm glad we're able to get our results from an average sample of Americans, rather than those who think they know better than the people -- which they usually don't.

Our basic conclusion from the people is that there's not a lot of change. George W. Bush really has done about as expected. The way we say this is -- the way we look at it is by comparing what people told us in January, just before he took office, and what they told us this past weekend.

Look at this one, for example. On the policies of George W. Bush leading the country or will they lead the country in the right direction or the wrong direction -- percent right direction, back in January, just before he took office: 56. Now this weekend, it's 55 -- same thing on wrong direction: basically no change -- positive -- and after 100 days, the public says about where they were when they were evaluating before he took office.

Look at these next slides. This is: Will George W. Bush be able to achieve these objectives? There's actually been a little uptick on a couple of those.

Will he be able to improve the environment? Now, that's at the low end of the list. But despite all the controversy, the public has ticked up a few points in thinking he will be able to do that -- cut taxes: up 10 points -- keep America prosperous: about the same now as it was back in January -- very little change there.

Now, some of the critiques of George W. Bush, finally, that we've looked at and asked the people to respond to: Is he not working hard enough? Well, only about a quarter of Americans agree with that.

Is he not in charge -- in other words, are Dick Cheney and others doing too much? Well, about 43 percent will agree with that. And the big sticking point that the public agrees with, criticism-wise: big business -- too much influence, almost two-thirds of Americans say yes, that's the case. We heard that, of course, back in the campaign. That's been with Bush for a long time.

All in all, a fairly positive report card and not a lot of change in the public's perception so far -- Leon, Kyra, back to you.

HARRIS: All right, good deal. Thanks, Frank, we'll talk with you later on.

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