Weekend Report: What's happening?

Trump's poll numbers plummet to new lows. But he can't stop himself. Administration is simultaneously caving in and going further to extremes.

Sources: YouGov/The Economist; The Economist

As Donald Trump marks his first 100 days in office on Tuesday, many polls, including some published yesterday and today, show him plummeting, losing more ground than any president in modern history during this period in his presidency. His support among all voters is in free fall, but even among Republicans, his approval is crumbling. Analysts see it only going downhill from here.

And yet, Trump, who has always been attuned to poll numbers, can’t help himself, trying to placate the public and the markets while quietly still pushing forward with his tariff madness—to where he’s lying, saying he has been speaking to China when he has not. Trump also seems removed from reality, in a bubble of hardcore extremists—unlike his first term in which some reality-based people were around him—thinking he can weather the storm and not care that his party will face a wipeout at the ballot box.

All of this has created an erratic, still exceedingly dangerous dynamic, as there is no central guiding force inside the White House and they alternately pull back and overreach. The administration, facing dozens of lawsuits in which the Justice Department wasn’t prepared, reversed the canceling of hundreds of student visas among international students, a major capitulation. Trump and DOJ officials suddenly hint they’re open to bringing Kilmar Abrego Garcia back. But then the FBI director had a judge arrested in Wisconsin, charging she was obstructing the detention of a migrant and, in a horrific action, ICE on Friday “deported”—let’s call it abducted—several American citizens who are children.