GOP Strategist: President Trump Should Drop Tariffs And Focus On This Instead

GOP strategist and Executive Director of Principles First Brittany Martinez joined "Forbes Newsroom" to discuss President Trump's approval ratings.

Transcript

00:00I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now is Brittany Martinez,

00:04Republican strategist and executive director of Principles First. Brittany, thank you so much for

00:09joining me. Thanks for having me back. We reached that official marker of the first 100 days in

00:16office and President Trump's an interesting case, as we know, because this is his second first 100

00:21days. And I want to talk about what he's done in this time. He signed dozens of executive orders,

00:27started, paused and ratcheted up global trade wars. He criticized leaders on social media as well as

00:35one to their face in the Oval Office. And he's also made decisions that had the power to shake

00:40global markets. I'm curious, how exactly would you characterize President Trump's first 100 days in

00:46his second term? What grade would you give that if it was a report card? Well, we could do pass fail,

00:53not the past one. You know, it's so funny. I think that the first 100 days have been an absolute

00:59dumpster fire. I think we talked about it one of these last times how executive orders are don't

01:04have lasting power. So if you really do want to be a policy and change maker, you have to work with

01:09Congress. And that's just something that he hasn't wanted to do. And you know, it's not just me,

01:13the American people are dissatisfied. He has the lowest approval rating of any president in the first

01:18100 days of a new administration in 70 years. That is incredible in a terrible way. And he's very,

01:24very careful about his image. And so I'm sure he's looking at some of these poll numbers that

01:28are coming out and trying to see where he might be able to make some adjustments.

01:33Where do you think he needs to take some or make some adjustments? Because I want to talk about those

01:37numbers just a little bit. ABC News, Washington Post, Ipsos released this poll that shows President

01:43Trump has the lowest approval rating at this 100 day marker than any president in over eight

01:49decades. So that means Trump 2.0 has a worse approval rating than Trump 1.0. Why do you think

01:56that is? And what do you think needs to be changed ASAP? I think a lot of people who voted for him

02:02were on the fence. They weren't happy with Biden. Harris only had a few months to try to get it

02:07together. I don't think she was able to. And they said, you know what, let's just give Trump

02:10another chance, even though he's someone who is very divisive. Obviously, I think that he on the

02:16campaign trail said, I'm the best for the economy. I'm going to fix the economy. I'm a businessman.

02:21I know how to fix this. And people believed him. And then what did he do immediately upon getting

02:25in tariffs? And now people are like, oh, wait, I actually don't think that's a good thing. And

02:30Amazon, I guess, is or is not going to be putting how much tariffs costs on products.

02:34But, you know, I think they're paying attention. And more Americans, or the majority of Americans,

02:41I should say, think that the economy is the fault of Trump right now. And we're only

02:46a quarter into his presidency. And I guess my recommendation would be do tax cuts. That's

02:53what he should have done first before tariffing everybody, right? And we have the budget coming

02:57up and those sorts of things. But let's give relief to the American people. The Biden economy

03:01was on its way up. However, it takes time for Americans to be able to feel those side effects.

03:08And so even though they were talking about an opportunity economy, Americans were still

03:11hurting. And now they voted for someone they thought would give them relief. And they're

03:15saying that's not the case. And I think a lot of people are starting to get concerned and

03:19get buyer's remorse.