It Took Years for Other Presidents to Reach Majority Disapproval. Trump: Eight Days

A homemade pinata of U.S. President Donald Trump. (Photo: Paul Sableman/cc/flickr)

It Took Years for Other Presidents to Reach Majority Disapproval. Trump: Eight Days

Gallup survey indicates that wide swathes of the American public are not in support of Trump's drastic policies

In at least one respect, U.S. President Donald Trump has eclipsed all his predecessors: How quickly he has reached majority disapproval.

Gallup's Presidential Job Approval Center found on Saturday that after just eight days in office, Trump's disapproval rating reached 51 percent--a record that, as pollster Will Jordan noted, fellow U.S. presidents did not even come close to reaching.

Gallup's latest three-day rolling average survey was taken after Trump's first week in office, on the same day that he enacted his controversial travel ban on citizens from seven predominantly Muslim countries, which was met with fierce protests at airports across the nation.

As Nation columnist Dave Zirin observed:

While the survey does not capture the response to Trump's latest executive order, it indicates that wide swathes of the American public are not in support of the other drastic steps taken in those first few days.

"Perhaps using his first week to begin construction of a border wall, halt refugee immigration from seven majority-Muslim countries, announce plans to roll back the Affordable Care Act, and reinstate a 'global gag rule' around abortion may have had something to do with it," quippedVox's Jacob Gardenswartz.

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