Episode 13
Rank: 3
Decline: -1:10%
Lowest Approval: 41.4%
Date Range: December 15-29 2018
Key Events:
Policy: In Oval Office ambush meeting with Pelosi and Schumer, Trump declares on camera that he will be happy to shut the government down and will take full responsibility for doing so; federal judge trikes down the entire Affordable Care Act; Trump announces Syria withdrawal, prompting congressional backlash; Government shuts down December 21; immigrant boy dies in US custody on the border.
White House Chaos: Ayres and Christie turn down offers to be chief of staff; continued news reports of how no one wants to be be Trump’s chief of staff; Zinke resigns under a cloud of multiple investigations; Syria withdrawal announcement via tweet and without consultation with usual stakeholders.
Russia Investigation: Cohen sentenced to jail in part for lying to Congress about Trump Tower Moscow; Flynn’s lawyers suggest he was framed by the FBI, then Flynn recants, admits to lying in open court and his sentencing is postponed so he can continue cooperating with the FBI; Whitaker choses not to recuse himself from the Mueller Investigation.
Non-Russia Related Legal Troubles: Cohen sentenced to three years in jail in part for hush money payments; Pecker admits to paying McDougal $150,000 to cover up affair with Trump, and AMI’s non-prosecution deal is made public; New York orders the Trump charity to close due to fraud.
Defections: Mattis resigns and submits critical resignation letter
This approval dip ranks at a 3 on the 10-point severity scale, so 9 of the 13 dips have been more sever. The main drivers of this dip appear to be the fact that Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen was sentenced to 3 years in prison, and Defense Secretary Mattis’s resignation. These events made me realize that I need to add 2 more categories to the trends that tend to coincide with approval dips. Before this episode there were only four: Policy; White House Chaos; Taboos; Russia Investigation. It’s been clear for a while that Trump is under a serious legal threat that has nothing to do with his dealings with Russia, and part of what Cohen is going to jail over has to do with campaign finance violations around the hush money payments for Trump’s affairs (He also admitted to lying to Congress about Trump Tower Moscow; Here is the full list of his crimes: “tax evasion, false bank statements, campaign-finance violations, and lying to Congress.”) The second new category covers defections from Trump World: when someone publicly cuts ties with Trump while also leveling clear, specific criticisms. Jim Mattis is the first major Trump Administration defector. His leaving left a lot of people expressing fear and anxiety, which probably accounts for the approval dip during these last weeks of December.