Will McNamee (Getty Images)
President Donald Trump.
According to SSRS, an independent research company that conducted a poll on behalf of CNN, 38% of respondents said they approved of Trump's handling of the presidency, while 56% disapproved - a modest drop from April's survey where 44% approved and 54% disapproved.
Other figures in the study's questionnaire painted a bleak picture of Trump's tenure as president so far (emphasis ours):
- 45% of respondents approved of Trump's handling of the economy, while 47% disapproved.
- 48% of respondents approved of the way Trump addresses national security, while 47 disapproved.
- 31% of respondents approved of Trump's grasp on health care policy, while 62% disapproved
- 40% of respondents approved of Trump's handling of immigration, while 55 disapproved.
- 36% of respondents said that Trump is honest and trustworthy, while 60% answered that the description "does not apply."
- 39% of respondents said that Trump could manage the government effectively, while 59% said that he couldn't.
According to CNN, only one other first-term president received approval numbers below 50% during this stage of his presidency: President Bill Clinton with a 44% approval rating in 1993.
CNN's data is nearly identical to other polls conducted around the same period of time. In a recent Rasmussen Reports poll - a poll often found to be the most favorable to Trump - 41% of respondents said they approved of Trump's performance, while 57% disapproved.
The SSRS study pooled 1,018 people who were surveyed between August 3 and August 6, during a time when Trump embarked on his 17-day vacation away from an embattled White House. The margin of error of the results was 3.6 percentage points.