Trump’s Fine-Tuned Machine Runs Like an Oil-Burning Jalopy

This story was originally published on nationaljournal.com on February 17, 2017 As a can­did­ate, Don­ald Trump thor­oughly en­joyed dis­mant­ling and tor­tur­ing the Re­pub­lic­an wing of the Re­pub­lic­an Party. But now that chaos, tur­moil, and in­eptitude have be­come the watch­words for his White House—not­with­stand­ing his as­ser­tion Thursday that it “is run­ning like a fine-tuned ma­chine”—the tar­gets of his barbs were giv­ing each oth­er “I told you so” glances. By way of cor­rob­or­a­tion, they poin­ted to Pres­id­ent Trump’s job-ap­prov­al rat­ings. A Feb. 7-12 Pew poll of 1,503 adults put it at just 39 per­cent, with 56 per­cent ex­press­ing dis­ap­prov­al. Those are as­ton­ish­ing num­bers com­pared to Pew’s ap­prove-dis­ap­prove num­bers at this point for Pres­id­ents Obama (64 to 17 per­cent), George W. Bush (53 to 21 per­cent), Clin­ton (56 to 25 per­cent), and George H.W. Bush (63 to 13 per­cent). Pew’s find­ings com­port with Gal­lup’s track­ing num­bers for Feb. 14-16 (40 per­cent ap­prov­al to 54 per­cent dis­ap­prov­al). In­ter­est­ingly, 84 per­cent of Re­pub­lic­ans and Re­pub­lic­an lead­ers ap­prove of Trump’s job per­form­ance, while 88 per­cent of Demo­crats and Demo­crat­ic-lean­ing in­de­pend­ents dis­ap­prove. Among in­de­pend­ents that don’t lean