Brutal new polling: Trump's immigration approach making the U.S. less safe, majority says

as we mentioned earlier,

the Trump administration is facing brutal new polling when it comes to the issue of immigration enforcement.

The latest Quinnipiac University poll shows 62% of registered voters believe the deadly shooting of Alex Pretti was unjustified.

Only 22% of Americans believe it was.

63% disapprove of the way ICE is enforcing immigration laws, that's up six points from just last month.

The poll also finds 60% of voters think ICE agents should withdraw from Minneapolis.

And nearly six out of 10 voters believe Homeland Security Secretary Christie Noem should be removed from office.

Also in that poll, a majority of voters, including 61% of independents prefer giving a pathway to legal status versus just deporting undocumented immigrants.

And

a majority of voters believe the Trump administration's approach to immigration is making the country less safe.

Join us now, CEO of the Messina Group, Jim Messina.

He served as White House Deputy Chief of Staff to President Obama and ran his 2012 re-election campaign.

Also, senior writer at the dispatch, columnist of Bloomberg Opinion, David Drucker.

And the co-host of our 9:00 a.m. hour, staff writer at the Atlantic, Jonathan Lemire.

Good morning to you all.

Jim, I'll start with you here.

in the studio.

We know that Donald Trump starts to move his position on things when he sees it hurting him personally.

or seeing his his political fortunes.

Clearly, and this is not the first poll that has shown this, this is not going over well.

This immigration enforcement, the scenes we're seeing in the streets of Minneapolis with the American people.

including many Republicans and lots of independents.

So why do you suspect the administration is staying with this?

To the extent it is, it's some cosmetic pullbacks and changes of leadership and that kind of thing.

But the policy remains.

Yeah, their overall theories don't show weakness.

and continue to go on here.

I mean, they're not making these cosmetic changes because they woke up and said, oh my gosh.

This is a great idea.

They woke up and saw a poll.

and saw these numbers and Willie, you and I have not seen numbers move like this.

Having a majority of Republicans now say this is wrong, independents, 75% of independents say this is wrong.

I mean, this are these are real numbers.

It used to be the bedrock of the Republican Party, his coalition that he got to win the presidency.

was based on immigration.

And now when even that's falling apart.

They have real problems.

And they can't get back to the issue that really is killing them, which is the economy and affordability.

And so the more they continue to talk about this, the worse off they are.

But Donald Trump cannot help himself.

He cannot do this.

And so you saw that interview.

He continued to steer right into it.

And if you're a swing voter, what you're saying over and over and over is enough of all this.

Just be a normal president, enforce our borders and focus on the economy.

And he's just not doing that.

And that is why you're seeing some of these amazing election results like we saw in Texas.

You know, you know, Jim, you and I have been around politics long enough.

to see this up close.

And I know I I repeat a lot of things on this show over and over again.

As I have since Donald Trump got elected.

And I did it when Joe Biden was president and before that.

I always talk about though, 2004, Carl Rove says permanent Republican majority.

2006, Nancy Pelosi's elected speaker of the house.

2008, Barack Obama's, you know, coalition of the ascendant Republicans are finished forever.

2010, it's the Tea Party.

And the Tea Party comes in.

We've changed DC forever.

Two years later, Barack.

I can keep going.

Every two years.

And so when I hear idiots talk about the Overton window.

After like three days and all that somebody's in office.

Oh, they've expanded the Overton window.

And what is he?

I I always get.

No, no, no.

It's not the Overton window.

It's Newton's third law of motion.

If you want to understand American politics.

For every action, whether in nature or in politics, there is always an opposite and equal reaction.

We see it in politics over and over again.

You open up the border.

What happens?

Suddenly, people become very restrictive in their views toward immigration.

You start killing Americans in the streets in the name of immigration enforcement.

Suddenly, we see polls like we're seeing now.

Where not only do they oppose the administration's immigration policies, but they start saying, you know what?

We support a pathway to citizenship.

We support legalization.

And suddenly, they liberalize.

And and this isn't just now.

As you know all too well, Barack Obama wins in 2008.

I swear, every Democrat saying this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

The next year, they lost Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.

This happens all the time.

And idiots come to Washington D.C. in both parties, overreact, and then they're shocked when they find out they don't own the future.

Joe, you're exactly right.

There's this 10 square mile logic free zone called Washington D.C.

And people in there don't they underestimate the normal voters.

Normal voters are so much smarter than people in D.C. think.

And they just want normal government.

They want to enforce the borders, they want ICE to be to be kind to people.

And deal with it.

They want people to focus on the economy.

Every election in the last 20 years, except for 2012, was a change election.

Meaning either the House or the Senate or the White House flipped control of parties.

That's what we're going to have in November this year when the Democrats take the House.

And it's exactly your point, the country goes back and forth between the two parties, begging them to just be normal and get normal things done and run a normal government.

And this president took power.

trying to expand the authority of the executive branch.

And we have seen him be successful, run rough shot a lot over a lot of the federal government.

We've seen also Congress and the Supreme Court largely abdicate their duties.

But as I wrote this week for the Atlantic, Republicans are quietly but still pushing for a bit of a course correction.

To Jim's point.

Talk about the economy.

Begging the White House to focus on that.

Remember earlier this year, Susie Wiles, the White House Chief of Staff, promised that President Trump would make a domestic trip each and every week this year to talk about the economy.

To campaign for Republicans because he did so little travel last year.

Well, this week, no travel.

They've already abandoned that promise.

We'll see if it's revived.

And instead, the president is, maybe it's slightly softer rhetoric, but he's staying with his immigration push, he's staying with gunboat diplomacy, Iran being the latest example.

And he's staying on vanity projects like the West the East Wing turning into a ballroom.

The Kennedy Center and the like.

And and David Drucker, you and I are sitting in the 10 square mile logic free zone that is Washington D.C. this morning.

We'll do our best.

We'll do our best.

We're trying to fight through that.

Um, and you know, what are you hearing here?

Because those polls that we just ran through.

are brutal.

They're brutal for the president, they're brutal for his party, and they're brutal on issues they're supposed to be his strength.

As you talk to Republicans, I mean, they can read the numbers too.

How worried are they?

They're worried.

Right?

I mean, look, first of all,

political professionals that I've been emphasizing this, right, the people that are actually actively advising congressional candidates.

that work on campaigns.

They get the joke.

They know what's happening.

Right? And then Republican leaders whose job it is to try and preserve these thin majorities.

And it's going to be more difficult to do so in the House than it will be in the Senate.

At least as things stand today.

But but the leadership understands the gravity of what they're facing.

They understand the history Joe just talked about.

They conducted their own polling.

And they know how this goes.

And a lot of them have been around long enough to see this pendulum swing.

But of course, you always want to put a good, you know, face out to the public.

Because the minute you acknowledge the trouble you're in, the headlines say, even Republicans admit that they're in a lot of trouble.

There's also a certain way you want to talk to the president.

because he doesn't like bad news.

And he lives in his own bubble.

Look, one of the reasons why, and this has happened to Democrats.

But here we're talking about Republicans because they're the ones in trouble.

One of the reasons why it's hard for Republicans to get their arms around this.

is because too few of them represent states and districts.

where they have a variety of voters who are going to tell them that their policies or their focus has gone astray.

Right? So when you represent a red district in the House and everybody in that district is watching conservative or populist or pro-Trump media.

When you represent a red state and it's like that.

And you go home.

You know what everybody tells you?

Mostly.

Keep fighting the fight.

Trump's right.

Don't back down.

And and so the the feedback loop is very dangerous.

You know, whereas you're Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania one.

Or you're a Republican in North Carolina, you're very well aware of how voters are reacting.

to the president's policies and your support for the president's policies.

Finally, you know, what I'd say is, and this is where sometimes politicians talk themselves into everything's okay.

They look at issue polls.

Well, you know, everybody believes illegal immigrant criminals should be deported.

Well, yeah, they do.

Like a majority of people.

That's one of the reasons Trump won.

But tactics matter.

Politics isn't just you support an issue.

It's like healthcare reform.

Find me a voter that's that's against healthcare reform.

You know where the fight is?

Obviously.

How are we going to go about it?

Where are the winners and losers?

How's that how's that going to affect me and my state versus you and your state?

And it's simple.

Politics is simple.

But everybody complicates it.

Because in part, they don't want to deal with the problem they have.

Because they don't know how to deal with it.

You know, the the way they they could have dealt with this from the beginning is way.

We said they should have dealt with it from the beginning, take a victory lap every week.

On the southern border.

It's a great success.

Americans will celebrate that.

And focus on the hardened criminals that you get deported.

Unfortunately,

only 7%, 7% of the people who are being uh uh accosted now.

A lot of U.S. citizens.

And and and and picked up by ICE.

A mistake.

Oh, a lot of U.S. citizens.

By the way, really quickly.

By the way, if.

What is ICE for exactly?

People want to understand why the reality is what it is.

What David said about people going home and being isolated.

That's the danger of gerrymandering.

The danger of gerrymandering for parties.

They get stuck in a feedback loop.

They hear the same thing over and over again.

They all watch the same uh MAGA networks.

Uh they all talk to each other.

And what happens is you have you only have like 30, 35 swing districts left in the House.

And all those break sharply, in this case, most likely break sharply blue.

In past cases, it would break sharply red.

So, yeah.

There it's and and so good luck getting somebody in districts that's 80% Republican and 20% Democratic.

Good luck getting them to step out and say what's best for the party overall.

They're not going to do it.