Tamara Keith and Amy Walter on what voters think about Trump’s economic policies

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• William Brangham:

  The political fallout from the Trump administration's tariff policies continues, and intraparty fighting seems to be breaking out with both Democrats and Republicans.

  For analysis, we are joined by Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

  Welcome to you both.

• Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report:

  Thank you.

• Tamara Keith, National Public Radio:

  Hi.

• William Brangham:

  Tam, sorry to not have you here in the room with us, but you look great, huge at the end of the table there.

  (Laughter)

• William Brangham:

  First question to you. I don't know if you heard. We had David Wessel on the program earlier talking about the economic crater that this has blown into the U.S. economy and how the future does not really seem all that clear.

  What have the political repercussions been for the president and his administration?

• Tamara Keith:

  I think that there are repercussions, even though the policy is a little bit unclear, or it seems like it changes every 48 hours or so.

  And various Trump administration officials are delivering different messages depending on what show they're on. And then President Trump will come out on social media and say something else, for instance, his social media post saying that there were no exceptions for electronics, they're still being tariffed, and also there might be more to come.

  What the consequences end up being is that consumer sentiment is in a very bad place. And consumer sentiment also then goes forward into sentiment about the president's performance on the economy. It is his weakest point. It is — of all of the things that are polled in terms of the president's performance, his performance on the economy is at the bottom, which is remarkable because he came into office as the businessman who was going to shake things up.

  He came into office — and generally Republicans are viewed more favorably on the economy. So to have that as his weak point does indicate that there is something happening here, that consumers are worried about a recession, and that polling — a CBS poll over the weekend indicated a large share of voters, including many Republicans, believe that prices are going to get higher as a result of this policy, at least in the short term.

• William Brangham:

  Right.

  I mean, and that, Amy, is certainly disastrous for an administration. I mean, does the president's about-face, the tariffs are on, well, now they're off, indicate that he is feeling that pressure.

• Amy Walter:

  I don't know.

  I mean, I do think that he firmly believes and has firmly believed for the last 40 years that this is the right policy and that, as he does in many things, sometimes, the policy is not as organized as many people would like to see, but that it — but it will work out at the end of the day. And I think that's why you have so many Republicans still sticking with him, including voters.

  That CBS poll finds most Republicans willing to give him some time for this to work out, even as they're saying, yes, in the short term, we expect prices to rise. There's also a little bit of a silver lining in some of this polling that we're seeing. While his…

• William Brangham:

  Silver lining for the president.

• Amy Walter:

  For the president, yes, for him.

  Even as consumers — as Tam points out, consumers are nervous and his handling of the economy has dropped off in recent in recent weeks, what we're also seeing is that 51 percent of voters in the CBS polls say that they like the idea of what he's trying to get at. It's that 65 percent of them don't like the way he's going at it.

  So that…

• William Brangham:

  They buy the argument that there's an injustice.

• Amy Walter:

  The idea that there's a need for these tariffs and that, among independent voters — obviously, Democrats aren't giving the president any credit. Republicans are all with him.

  Among independent voters, more than 60 percent of them in the CBS poll said they're willing to wait a few weeks, months, even up to a year for these to work themselves out. And so while the chaos of it is exhausting, is taking a toll for consumers and for the president's overall approval rating, he may actually have some more time for this to get to a place that people feel like, oh, OK, either that wasn't so bad or maybe we're in a better place.

• William Brangham:

  Tamara, I want to pivot to the Democrats for a second and sort of a bind that they seem to be in. I mean, on the one hand, you have Democrats that — especially state governors, who feel like they have to talk to the president to try to dodge the incoming fire of his tariffs.

  But you also have a base that very much wants them to fight like hell against him. And we saw that in those protests that erupted around the country recently. There was this remarkable example that happened here in Washington where Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer came to Washington, D.C., to talk to President Trump about this.

  But apparently she was dragged into a photo-op that she didn't want to be a part of. And The New York Times had this incredible photograph of her basically covering her face as if to indicate, I'm not cozying up to the president, dear voters, who you want me to be hitting with a big club.

  Describe a little bit the bind that the Democrats find themselves in.

• Tamara Keith:

  Yes, and I think governors in particular find themselves in a bind. You have Governor Whitmer hiding behind that folder and then just getting taken to task on social media. Not that social media is real life, but people saying, and that's the day she lost the race for president.

  I don't know that that's — I think that's overstating the case. But the challenge for governors is that they do need the federal government. They need federal assistance when there are disasters. They need those Medicaid payments. They — essentially, they need to somehow work with the federal government because that's the way our government functions at the same time that at any given moment President Trump could turn on them, could withhold funding, could — as he's been doing with universities and going after the state of Maine, for instance.

  And so governors are in an incredibly challenging position just trying to govern and lead their states at this time where the president of the United States could turn on them at any moment, but where their voters, as you say, do really want change. They want a fighter. They want someone to aggressively hit back at the president, though, yes, they're just a little bit stuck.

• William Brangham:

  And, Amy, there's also this frustration we have been seeing vented most recently by a lot of progressive Democrats challenging sitting Democrats in House races, also Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez getting tens of thousands of people out on a very economic populist fight the president message.

• Amy Walter:

  Right.

  I think what we're seeing more than anything is one — much more of style than ideology. Somebody, I heard the other day saying what Democrats are fighting about is not to be more progressive, but to be more aggressive, especially when it comes to Donald Trump.

  Where that gets them, though, is the — really the next question because fundamentally, and this is where I think Whitmer was going, which is you not only have to work with the president because I'm a governor of a state and for all the reasons Tam pointed out, you need federal assistance, but also what do the Democrats stand for economically?

  And that's going to be the big question going forward.

• William Brangham:

  Amy Walter, Tamara Keith, great to have you both. Thank you.

• Amy Walter:

  You're welcome.