Trouble?
President Donald Trump’s got it.
You know you have a problem when the warning by a federal judge − that he sees “probable cause” your administration has committed criminal contempt − wasn’t the worst news you got on Wednesday.
The worst news were the matter-of-fact remarks by Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell that the president’s tariffs were “highly likely” to fuel inflation and could slow growth. He didn’t use the word, but that’s the combination dubbed “stagflation” when it struck the Jimmy Carter administration.
While voters judge presidents on many things, they almost always put at the top of the list managing the economy. Indeed, President Joe Biden’s failure to address inflation quickly enough or effectively enough was one of the factors most responsible for his ouster from the White House by Trump.
Now, two weeks after Trump celebrated his new sweeping tariffs with what he called “Liberation Day,” critics say he is encountering the-chickens-come-home-to-roost day.
Of course, Trump has regularly defied political gravity since he announced a presidential bid in 2015 that almost no one took very seriously. He won the White House and has been the defining force in American politics ever since.
Not controversy or criminal convictions or flurries of fact-checking or even the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol has prevented him from triumphing, eventually.
That is an asset that is about to get tested.
This time around, though, the issue isn’t Trump’s personal behavior or his provocative rhetoric. It is the number that millions of Americans see when they check the value of their 401(k) accounts after the stock market’s current rollercoaster.
Or, in some cases, when they are afraid to check what their retirement investments are now worth.
Trump’s approval on the economy is on a slide
His job-approval ratings have been on a slide.
In the Economist/YouGov survey, he started his second term in modestly positive territory, 49% approve-43% disapprove. But in the latest poll, that’s flipped to 43% approve-51% disapprove, a swing of 14 points before he reaches his 100th day.
The erosion in views of his handling of the economy have been a bit worse, now negative by 10 points, 51%-41%. A significant red flag: Among those who voted for him in 2024, 75% approved of him on the economy in late March; now 66% do.
More: Trump’s approval ratings take a hit as tariff turmoil causes economic anxiety
That said, Americans continue to approve of Trump’s handling of immigration, 50%-40%. That is a sign of the continued strength of the issue that has most animated Trump’s political support from the start.
Which helps explain why, at the close of a turbulent day, the White House added a late afternoon press briefing with a surprise guest. That turned out to be Patty Morin, the mother of a Maryland woman who was killed by an immigrant who came to the U.S. illegally from El Salvador. A jury on Monday found him guilty of murder and rape.
Rachel Morin’s murder had been a flashpoint in last year’s campaign.
The mistaken deportation of another Salvadoran immigrant, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, has become a new flashpoint in Trump’s presidency, but one the White House welcomes.
Angry town halls: An early-warning system?
But ignoring a court warning may be different, politically.
Chief U.S. District Judge James Boasberg on Wednesday said he was considering whether to begin contempt of court proceedings against the Trump administration. He said they demonstrated “willful disregard” for his March 15 order barring the deportation of Venezuelan alleged gang members based on the wartime Alien Enemies Act.
In Fort Madison, Iowa, Tuesday, concern about whether Trump would defy the Supreme Court was one of several issues that voters heckled Sen. Chuck Grassley about at an angry town hall.
“Are you going to bring that guy back from El Salvador?” one man shouted amid scattered applause. “He’s got an order from the Supreme Court and Trump just said ‘no.'”
The six-term Republican senator from the reliably red state got an earful about the impact of tariffs on farm exports, about the threat of potential cuts to Social Security, and about Trump’s leadership generally.
“I just want to know if you’re proud of voting for Trump and what he’s doing in office?” one of the voters sitting on folding chairs in city hall demanded. “Are you proud of everything he’s doing?”
“There’s no president I’ve agreed with 100% of the time,” Grassley replied.
He was one of the few Republicans who is holding town-hall meetings during the two-week congressional recess. The chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee warned GOP members against participating in the forums for fear of vocal voter backlash.
Since the rise of the Tea Party movement in 2009, rowdy town halls have become a sort of early warning system about where the energy, and the anger, of political sentiment is going.
U.S. President Donald Trump holds a ball with his name on it, during a presentation of the Commander-in-Chief trophy to the the U.S. Navy Midshipmen football team of the United States Naval Academy, at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 15, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
The president’s current squeeze isn’t the aftermath of some natural disaster or foreign crisis.
It’s the result of his success in pursuing two of his biggest priorities: imposing tariffs, which he has been advocating as an economic elixir since he was a real-estate developer in the 1980s. And using every possible tool to reduce the number of immigrants who are in the country illegally, including those who push the boundaries of his executive powers.
As a result of the tariffs, Powell told the Economic Club of Chicago, unemployment is likely to go up as the economy slows. Some of the tariff burden is going to be “paid by the public,” he said, though the extent of price hikes isn’t yet clear. Trump replied Thursday on the social-media platform Truth Social, calling for Powell’s “termination” and demanding the Fed cut interest rates.
Powell had warned that the Fed’s fundamental goals, of maintaining stable growth and maximum employment, could be “in tension.” In that case, he said, the central bank would have to make “what will no doubt be a very difficult judgment” about what to do.
The White House, too.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump in trouble? Stagflation, judicial contempt, and sagging polls