Isn't it amazing what happens when a president actually keeps his campaign promises? Other than that novelty, it isn't easy to see why Jonathan Karl seems so amazed at Donald Trump's newfound popularity, especially his main agenda's popularity. ABC's guest host on This Week asked a clearly demoralized Hakeem Jeffries to answer for it, and the Democrat House Speaker seemed a bit reluctant to do so.

Nor was Jeffries the only Democrat to twist in the Sunday-show winds yesterday:

ABC’s Jon Karl: Trump’s favorability is now HIGHER than it ever was in his first term.

- 63% want the government to recognize only two sexes
- 60% support deporting illegal aliens
- 60% favor expanding oil & gas productionpic.twitter.com/9fUNRCY0Yp

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 16, 2025

Karl's right that Trump has never been more popular. His favorability rating dipped at the end of the week, but Trump's job approval hit 48.8% in RCP's aggregation by the weekend. Whatever else one can say about the first four weeks of Trump's presidency, voters largely -- and increasingly -- like it. 

And as Jeffries says, "we're only at the beginning."

Karl quoted a new Marquette Law poll from last week to Jeffries that actually took place the week before -- roughly covering the second week of Trump's presidency. Notably, that misses the real productive start to the US DOGE Service efforts; Marquette never even polled on DOGE, which makes this an interesting artifact of that second week.

What they do poll on, however, mainly looks great for Trump. Six in ten Americans support the main pillars of Trump's opening stanza in Term 2: He's Back and He's Pissed:

Here are Trump’s executive orders, among those covered in the poll, garnering favorable support:

• The federal government’s recognizing only two sexes, male and female, is supported by 63% and opposed by 37%.
• Asked about deporting immigrants in the United States illegally, 60% are in favor and 40% are opposed.
• Similarly, 60% favor expanding oil and gas production.
• And 59% favor declaring a national emergency due to migrant crossings at the southern border.

Notably, independents support all four of these by majorities -- especially the rejection of gender "spectrum" policies, in which two-thirds of independents agree. And just as notably, less than 30% of Democrats support any of these positions. If anyone needed a measure of how out-of-step Democrats have become from the electorate, Marquette provides a very good look in this data set. 

Marquette lists four other policies where Trump doesn't get majority support, but let's just note the tertiary nature of most:

Of the four policies that face majority opposition among all adults, between 57% and 68% of Republicans support Trump’s positions. Among Republicans, 67% favor deportations of immigrants including those with no criminal record, 63% support taking back the Panama Canal, 68% favor pardons for Jan. 6 defendants, and 57% favor renaming the Gulf of Mexico.

Yes, but ... Since this poll got taken, the Panama Canal issue has been resolved in Trump's favor. At least so far, Trump isn't rounding up non-dangerous illegal aliens, making that more or less moot for now. The pardons and the Gulf of America may be big deals for the media, but voters likely couldn't care less. 

Let's put it this way: Will Democrats run on a midterm platform to rename it the Gulf of Mexico? I'd love to see them try, actually. And they can't run on pardons after Joe Biden issued pre-emptive pardons to his entire corrupt family, and after his entire corrupt family accepted those pardons, too. 

On the issues that matter to voters, Trump has the wind at his back and the electorate solidly behind him. That's what makes Amy Klobuchar's vibrato warning that "the pressure is on" Trump so amusing:

Amy Klobuchar spreads blatant lies on CNN—claims Trump is "stopping Head Start" and cutting cancer research.

Both are completely false, but of course, Fake News CNN didn’t push back. pic.twitter.com/MsDZ1TSDLd

— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) February 16, 2025

Contra Dana Bash, that's not what they are doing. But even if they were, why hasn't Klobuchar introduced a bill to authorize that spending directly? Why not offer it up for a vote? Congress has that authority, and constitutionally speaking, only Congress has that authority. Klobuchar and Jeffries aren't interested in cancer studies at NIH enough to bother, apparently, but they do want to keep cutting blank checks to federal bureaucrats to fund their allied NGOs. It's a money-laundering operation that Klobuchar's attempting to defend, and her voice is shaking because the grift has become obvious. And voters hate it, which is why Trump has suddenly become popular over the past few weeks as voters realize he's serious about ending it.