By Zachary B. Wolf, CNN
US President Donald Trump speaks to journalists in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, on 30 January, 2025. Photo: AFP
Analysis - President Donald Trump has hit his second term at a full sprint, marking each day with a flurry of activity meant to rebrand the country and remake the government.
It's been a dizzying onslaught of activity that may have people's heads spinning. Did all of the people who voted for Trump really want all of this?
On Thursday, it was a promise to impose new tariffs on foreign automobiles despite a spike in inflation data.
Inflation and the economy, if you read the polling data, were two of the main drivers behind Trump's election win. Tariffs, if you believe most economists, are going to make things more expensive, not less.
Trump's campaign promises to impose tariffs and to bring down prices were contradictory, and he has decided to focus on tariffs over inflation, at least to start.
He has also used his power to make changes that were never mentioned on the campaign trail, like renaming the "Gulf of Mexico" to the "Gulf of America."
Most Americans, 71 percent, oppose the name change, according to a recent Marquette University poll.
Add together Trump's many large policy goals - mass deportation, a much smaller bureaucracy, a why-bother attitude toward climate change - and he could leave behind a much different country than the one he took over from President Joe Biden.
And that's the point of elections, as Trump has argued, including on Tuesday in the Oval Office when he said that voters choose his plan to drastically cut down on government spending.
"That's what I got elected for, that and borders and military, and a lot of things. But this is a big part of it."
Trump's chief government cost cutter Elon Musk. Photo: AFP/ Chip Somodevilla
Or, as Trump's chief government cost cutter Elon Musk said, "The people voted for major government reform. There should be no doubt about that. That was on the campaign."
Musk is certainly right that Trump promised drastic change, particularly on immigration, slashing the size of government, ending birthright citizenship and more.
The details, particularly on slashing the size of government, may be coming as a surprise to some. Trump did not talk much on the campaign trail about ending agencies such as USAID and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
He actively distanced himself from Project 2025, the conservative blueprint that has turned out to be very similar to much of Trump's second-term agenda.
Dissatisfaction with Trump on inflation
Inflation was among voters' biggest gripes with the Biden administration. And yet Trump's early moves, particularly on tariffs, may drive up prices, at least in the short term.
"There's a lot of things that folks have liked about Donald Trump's first few weeks in office. Inflation is not one of them," CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten said during an appearance on the network.
Enten pointed to a recent CBS poll in which 66 percent of Americans said he wasn't focusing enough on lowering the prices of goods and services. That included nearly half of Republicans.
General approval of Trump
In the same CBS poll, however, Trump has a positive approval rating, 53 percent, and majorities described him as tough, energetic, focused and effective. Other polls have shown him slightly underwater.
Most people in the CBS poll, 70 percent, also agreed that he's doing what he promised to do.
A majority may approve of him and a strong majority may have expected all of this, but that doesn't mean most people agree with all of it.
Americans can be just as contradictory as Trump
In that Marquette poll, 60 percent support deporting migrants in the country illegally and 59 percent support declaring a national emergency at the border, as Trump has done.
On the other hand, 57 percent oppose deporting immigrants who have been in the United States illegally for a number of years, are employed and have no criminal record, although Trump seems likely to deport many such people.
Representative Carlos Giménez, a Miami Republican, generally supports Trump's immigration policies but has been hearing anger from the large Venezuelan population in his district at Trump's decision to rescind Temporary Protective Status for refugees from Venezuela, who are in the US legally.
Those in his district could be persecuted if they're deported, Giménez told CNN's Pamela Brown on Thursday.
"It's up to me as a congressman to represent my constituency," Gimenez said.
"The bad ones" should be taken back, he said, "But there are other folks that really do have fear of repercussion when they go back to Venezuela or Cuba, et cetera. And those people should be treated a little bit differently."
Trump won Miami-Dade County with more than 55 percent of the vote, and he won 58 percent of Latino voters in Florida, according to exit polls.
Trump is pursuing some sub-40 percent ideas
In polling from Reuters/Ipsos, there was a lot of support for Trump's executive actions, including shrinking the size of government and freezing most foreign aid.
But only 40 percent or fewer of Americans supported some of Trump's more controversial moves. These include:
- Barring transgender people from serving openly in the military
- Ending federal efforts to prioritise the hiring of women and minorities
- Withdrawing the US from the Paris Climate Accord
- Attempting to end birthright citizenship
- Freezing funding for some services and grants
- Pardoning January 6 protesters
- Notably, a majority of Republicans support all of these policies, but even they are opposed to Trump's plan to place fewer restrictions on how and where artificial intelligence systems are used.
In a country of more than 330 million people that provides only two viable options for its leader every four years, it's to be expected that no one will support everything a president does.
That's especially true when it comes to Trump, who has veered the GOP on a populist course that makes old guard Republicans uncomfortable.
The loneliness of Mitch McConnell
US senator Mitch McConnell. Photo: AFP / Brendan Smialowski
Senator Mitch McConnell, who was until recently the Republican leader in the Senate, is now a lonely voice against Trump on some issues.
A polio survivor, McConnell was the lone Republican to oppose the confirmation of vaccine sceptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's pick for Health and Human Services. Kennedy was confirmed on Thursday.
In comments on Thursday, Trump insulted McConnell by questioning whether he ever had polio.
McConnell also opposed Trump's secretary of defense Pete Hegseth, and his director of national intelligence Tulsi Gabbard.
Despite his criticisms of Trump on some issues, McConnell has said he will support most of Trump's policies, although he will be a loud Republican voice against isolationist foreign policy or a retreat in support from besieged democracies like Ukraine.
That could be a losing battle for McConnell, since Trump has embraced a much friendlier approach toward Russia and said on Thursday he trusts Russian President Vladimir Putin.
McConnell arguably helped enable Trump's political rebirth when he declined to vote to convict Trump in a 2021 Senate impeachment trial.
Conviction could have barred Trump from office after the January 6 riot. McConnell rebuked Trump at the time.
- CNN
