NBC poll: Trump hits highest approval ever as more say US on right track than any time in 20 years

 Three months into his second term, President Trump hit the highest approval rating he’s ever had as commander-in-chief — while more Americans say the country is on the right track than at any point since 2004, a new poll found.

That’s the good news, according to an NBC News Poll released Sunday.

The bad news is that Trump still has not won over a majority of Americans, and 54% said they disapprove of his handling of the economy — the first time he’s lost a majority on that issue in NBC’s poll.

3

The NBC News poll had mixed results for President Trump but pegged him as tying with his highest approval rating.REUTERS

Even so, the survey found that voters generally feel Trump is bringing “the right kind of change” on the key issues — even tariffs.

00:01

04:27

More Americans support his changes to trade policy (41%) than oppose it (38%), according to NBC.

That’s despite the stock market selloff last week as Wall Street grappled with Trump’s decision earlier this month to slap 25% across-the-board tariffs on Canada and Mexico as well as a 20% tariff on China.

On many other key issues, voters felt the same way, with Trump’s actions on the border being the most popular — 56% said it was a positive change. On government cuts, 47% said his changes were good, compared to just 29% who opposed.

Even on his handling of the Ukraine war and NATO — policies he’s received significant pushback on — more respondents said his actions were good — (41% and 40%) than opposed his actions.

NBC poll respondents also appear to be cutting Trump some slack on inflation — 40% said his policies are having a positive effect, compared to 30% who said they were having a negative impact; 28% said Trump’s policies are not changing things at all.

Illustrating how the president remains a political Rorschach test for a deeply divided country, Trump’s approval rating among Republicans is 90%, while his figures among Democrats clock in at a paltry 4%, per the poll.

That’s the largest gap in approval ratings between a president’s party and the opposition party over the last 80 years, NBC assessed.

Some 47% of voters in the survey approve of Trump — compared to 51% who disapprove, marking an all-time high in the poll. He previously hit 47% in early 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic, and in October 2018.

NBC News’ findings mirror most other polling, with the latest RealClearPolitics aggregate of polls showing Trump with a 48.2% approval rating on average.

Trump’s approval rating is significantly higher than where it stood at this point during his first term (44%), per RCP, though below where former President Joe Biden was during the same time (53%).

In another boost for Trump, NBC News recorded that a two-decade high 44% of registered voters believe that the country is on the right track, while 54% believe it’s heading in the wrong direction.

3

Voters generally felt that the president was making the right choices in key areas like tariffs and his dealings with the wars overseas.Getty Images

While still pessimistic, that marks the most positive outlook on the country’s direction the poll has found since President George W. Bush was in office 20 years ago.

It’s also a huge swing from the last administration. Last September, just 28% percent of polled voters told NBC News that the country was headed in the right direction — compared to 65% who said it was on the wrong track.

One of the most significant actions Trump has taken in his second term was to establish the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), something that has sparked protests from government workers and an outcry from Democrats.

3

Democrats and the media generally scored negative numbers in the NBC News poll.Getty Images

While DOGE is unpopular (47% negative to 41% positive), voters generally believe it was a good idea (46%), compared to 40% who say it was a bad idea to set up.

Trump has steadfastly stood by DOGE and Elon Musk amid political backlash to the cost-cutting initiative, which is intended to help slim down the federal deficit.

In a key bright spot for Trump, Democrats’ favorability is at an abysmal 27%, with 55% viewing the party negatively, marking the worst numbers for the party in NBC News’ polling history.

Another poll from CNN found a similar result and also pegged Dems with their lowest rating in its polling history, with only 29% viewing the party favorably.

Additionally, voters also displayed skepticism of the media’s coverage of Trump, with 46% concluding it’s been too critical, while 25% felt it was too supportive, and 24% approved of the media’s approach to him.

The NBC News survey sampled 1,000 registered voters between March 7–11 with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

https://nypost.com/2025/03/16/us-news/trump-hits-highest-approval-hes-ever-had/

Houthis Claim Ballistic Missile Attack On USS Truman Carrier

 Yemen's Health Ministry now says that 32 people, including children, died after Saturday's major US airstrikes pounded Sanaa, with President Donald Trump warning the Houthis not to attack ships passing through the Red Sea.

But on Sunday, that's precisely what the Houthis did: a Houthi military announcement claimed the group carried out "a qualitative operation" on the US aircraft carrier Harry S Truman. "Our forces targeted the Truman aircraft carrier with 18 ballistic and cruise missiles and a drone," a spokesman said.

Via Stars & Stripes

Nasruddin Amer, deputy head of the Houthi media office, described that Saturday's US air strikes - which reportedly hit some 170 sites - won’t deter the Shia armed group back by Iran. 

Amer pledged more attacks on Red Sea shipping will come: "Sanaa will remain Gaza’s shield and support and will not abandon it no matter the challenges," he said.

But later in the day Sunday an unnamed Pentagon official was quoted in Reuters as rejecting the Houthi claim. The official dismissed the claim of that a missile and drone attack came close to hitting the USS Harry S Truman.

A subsequent Fox report said that US warships shot down any inbound Houthi drones, and that they were not a serious threat.

Saturday's strike on Yemen not only resulted in civilian deaths, but a reported over 100 injured, as President Trump vowed to “use overwhelming lethal force” while warning Iran to "immediately" cut its support.

"Your time is up, and your attacks must stop, starting today. If they don’t, hell will rain down upon you like nothing you have ever seen before," the president said on Truth Social.

"I have ordered the US military today to launch a decisive and powerful military operation against the Houthi terrorists in Yemen,” he said, adding that he's willing to use "overwhelming lethal force until we have achieved our objective."

An American defense official denied the Houthi statement:

Houthis: We attacked the US aircraft carrier USS Harry Truman with 18 BALLISTIC MISSILES and drones

‘We will not hesitate to target all US warships in Red Sea and Arabian Sea’
pic.twitter.com/eOHQ2c5AI4

— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) March 16, 2025

The Houthis' leader last just Friday had declared a four-day deadline before attacks on shipping would resume. That four day timeline had ended by close of Tuesday, which means the Red Sea could be soon fiery scene of drone and missile attacks out of Yemen once again.

Since 2023 over 100 missile and drone attacks on commercial vessels have occurred in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. The Houthis have also downed several MQ-9 Reaper drones operated by the Pentagon.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/houthis-claim-ballistic-missile-attack-uss-truman-carrier

'Why the worst of this stock-market correction may be over'

The S&P 500 SPX

+2.13% will bottom on May 17 at 5,309 — 13.6% below its Feb. 19 all-time high. That’s if the U.S. stock-market correction that we now know began on Feb. 19 lasts as long as the median correction of the past 100 years, and declines just as much.



Of course, the current correction could morph into a major bear market if the market loses more than 20% from its high. But odds are that it won’t. Of all S&P 500 drops of at least 10% since 1928, 60% of them stopped before the market fell through the 20% threshold to satisfy the semiofficial definition of a bear market.


Whether these odds are comforting depends on your perspective. On the one hand, you may be discouraged to learn that there are two more months of losses ahead for just a garden-variety correction. On the other hand, since the S&P 500 drops 13.6% in a median correction, that means most of the price damage is already behind us. The market would need to drop only 3.9% more from Thursday’s close to be 13.6% below its February high.

Your next question might be what history says will be the length of the market’s recovery from the correction. Again, on the assumption that this correction will be of the median length and severity, it will take almost four months from the correction’s bottom — until Sept. 11, to be exact—for the S&P 500 to recover and make it back to new high territory.

The statistics reported here, based on data back to the 1920s, tell a slightly different story than what you may read elsewhere. My MarketWatch colleague Isabel Wang, for example, recently reported what the typical correction looks like based on data since 2008.

Peering into past corrections

Bear in mind that the median, which is the basis of the conclusions reported here, glosses over a range of lengths and losses of history’s actual corrections. As you can see from the table below, some corrections cause the market to decline by the most it possibly can without becoming a bear market — while others are virtually over the moment the market drops into correction territory. There is also a wide dispersion in correction lengths.

Shallowest Correction Deepest Correction
Length 13 days 531 days
% loss -10.1% -19.9%

About those bear markets

To repeat, the data reported so far in this column depend on the assumption that this is a correction rather than the beginning of a bear market. What does history tell us to expect if indeed this correction does become a bear market?

The picture isn’t pretty. The median bear market lasts 261 days and involves a peak-to-trough loss in the S&P 500 of 32.7%. If we’re in a median bear market, therefore, the market’s decline will last until Nov. 7 and the S&P 500 will drop by 25.1% more than it has already. And, again assuming we’re in a median bear market, the S&P 500 will need more than a year thereafter to fully recover the ground it lost in the bear market — not reaching a new all-time high until July 25, 2027.

Mark Hulbert is a regular contributor to MarketWatch. His Hulbert Ratings tracks investment newsletters that pay a flat fee to be audited. He can be reached at mark@hulbertratings.com

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-the-worst-of-this-stock-market-correction-may-be-over-3537231c

DOJ antitrust head targets pricey consultants amid DOGE cost cutting

 The U.S. Department of Justice's newly confirmed head of antitrust enforcement said her division will review what it spends on expensive economic consultants as part of President Donald Trump's effort to cut costs across the federal government, according to an internal memo seen by Reuters.

Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater in a memo to staff on Thursday also said antitrust efforts would focus on inflation and making consumer markets competitive.

The review of consultants is an early indication of how antitrust officials will balance Trump's call for robust enforcement with his advisor Elon Musk's government-wide cost-cutting campaign, referred to as the Department of Government Efficiency.

The DOJ's antitrust cases seek to block mergers, break up companies, or impose other requirements aimed at stopping or preventing anticompetitive business behavior. They often rely on economic experts that can cost as much as $30 million for a single lawsuit.

“We have world-class economists in-house, and we can and should utilize and maximize their talents before seeking outside help,” Slater said in the memo.

The division will focus its limited resources on markets that affect U.S. consumers as well as protecting competition in areas that are key to national security.

"In an era of rising prices, pocketbook issues are front of mind, and we will prioritize these markets," Slater wrote, bringing the department's legal firepower to a central campaign promise of Trump, fighting inflation.

On the national security front, she noted global competition in artificial intelligence, 5G and quantum computing and said "we are relying on competitive markets to win these global technological races, and antitrust has a key role to play here,” suggesting the three areas may be a focus of her department going forward.

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2025-03-16/doj-antitrust-head-targets-pricey-consultants-amid-doge-cost-cutting

Trump and Putin expected to speak this week as US pushes for Russia-Ukraine ceasefire

 U.S. President Donald Trump is expected to speak with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin this week on ways to end the three-year war in Ukraine, U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN on Sunday after returning from what he described as a "positive" meeting with Putin in Moscow.

"I expect that there will be a call with both presidents this week, and we're also continuing to engage and have conversation with the Ukrainians," said Witkoff, who met with Putin on Thursday night, adding that he thought the talk between Trump and Putin would be "really good and positive."

Trump is trying to win Putin's support for a 30-day ceasefire proposal that Ukraine accepted last week, as both sides continued trading heavy aerial strikes through the weekend and Russia moved closer to ejecting Ukrainian forces from their months-old foothold in the western Russian region of Kursk.

Trump said in a social media post on Friday that there was "a very good chance that this horrible, bloody war can finally come to an end." He also said he had "strongly requested" that Putin not kill the thousands of Ukrainian troops that Russia is pushing out of Kursk.

Putin said he would honor Trump's request to spare the lives of the Ukrainian troops if they surrendered. The Kremlin also said on Friday that Putin had sent Trump a message about his ceasefire plan via Witkoff, expressing "cautious optimism" that a deal could be reached to end the conflict.

In separate appearances on Sunday shows, Witkoff, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Trump's national security adviser, Mike Waltz, emphasized that there are still challenges to be worked out before Russia agrees to a ceasefire, much less a final peaceful resolution to the war.

Asked on ABC whether the U.S. would accept a peace deal in which Russia was allowed to keep stretches of eastern Ukraine that it has seized, Waltz replied, "Are we going to drive every Russian off of every inch of Ukrainian soil?" He added that the negotiations had to be grounded in "reality."

Rubio told CBS a final peace deal would "involve a lot of hard work, concessions from both Russia and Ukraine," and that it would be difficult to even begin those negotiations "as long as they're shooting at each other."

ADDITIONAL MEASURES

Trump has warned that unless a ceasefire is reached, the conflict between Moscow and Kyiv has the potential to spiral into World War Three.

His administration took steps last week to induce further cooperation on a ceasefire. On Saturday, Trump said that General Keith Kellogg's role had been narrowed from special envoy for Ukraine and Russia to only Ukraine, after Russian officials sought to exclude him from peace talks.

A license allowing U.S. energy transactions with Russian financial institutions expired last week, according to the Trump administration, raising pressure on Putin to come to a peace agreement over Ukraine.

The U.S. Treasury Department is looking at possible sanctions on Russian oil majors and oilfield service companies, a source familiar with the matter said, deepening steps already taken by Biden.

https://www.aol.com/news/trump-putin-expected-speak-week-153715226.html

Erdogan, Trump discuss Ukraine, Syria, defence issues, Turkey says

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan spoke by phone with U.S. President Donald Trump and discussed efforts to end the war between Russia and Ukraine and to restore stability in Syria, Erdogan's office said on Sunday.

He told Trump that Turkey supports his "decisive and direct initiatives" to end the war between Russia and Ukraine and that Turkey will continue to strive for a "just and lasting peace," the statement said.

Erdogan also spoke of "the importance of jointly contributing to the lifting of sanctions on Syria to restore stability, make the new administration functional and support normalization," the statement said, adding that this would enable Syrians to return to their homeland.

Turkey also expects steps from the United States regarding the fight against terrorism, taking into account Turkey's interests, it said.

In the battle against Islamic State in Syria, the United States is allied with a Syrian Kurdish militia that Turkey regards as a terrorist group. Turkey has sharply criticized this U.S. stance as a betrayal of a NATO ally.

Erdogan said it was necessary to end CAATSA sanctions, finalize Ankara's F-16 procurement process and its re-participation in the F-35 program in order to develop defense industry cooperation between Turkey and the United States.

Ankara's past purchase of Russian S-400 air defense systems prompted U.S. sanctions and Turkey's removal from the F-35 fighter jet program in 2019.

https://www.newsmax.com/headline/russia/2025/03/16/id/1203032/