Leubsdorf: Trump tries to end slide - The Columbian

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Opinion

The following is presented as part of The Columbian’s Opinion content, which offers a point of view in order to provoke thought and debate of civic issues. Opinions represent the viewpoint of the author. Unsigned editorials represent the consensus opinion of The Columbian’s editorial board, which operates independently of the news department.

A leopard can’t change its spots. A tiger can’t change its stripes. And the Trump administration can’t change its image by soft-pedaling some of its most unpopular policies.

But with an eye toward November’s election, it’s trying to change perceptions — if not actual policies — now that President Donald Trump’s job approval level has reached the area that foretold midterm disasters for Trump and his GOP predecessor, George W. Bush.

A new poll last week, by the Associated Press and the NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, showed Trump’s job approval at a dire 36 percent. Gallup, in its last measure of presidential approval before changing its polling focus, recorded a like result in December.

Though the White House disputes such numbers, the administration seems to be responding to what they suggest by signaling impending changes in several controversial, high-profile Trump policies:

Tariffs. Within days of two reports that Americans and American companies were paying the cost of Trump’s tariffs, and a House vote rejecting them, the Financial Times reported the president was considering easing levies on steel and aluminum imports.

Though the administration has repeatedly contended its tariffs were helping Americans, the Financial Times said trade officials have concluded they are hurting American consumers.

The nonpartisan Tax Foundation said Trump’s tariffs cost American households an average of $1,000 in 2025 and would cost $1,300 in 2026. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York said that 90 percent of increased tariff costs were paid by U.S. companies, many of whom passed them on to consumers.

Vaccines to MAHA. Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, is making what The New York Times called “a calculated election-year pivot away from vaccines” by increasing his emphasis on a popular part of his agenda — encouraging healthy eating habits.

It cited “a Hollywood-style event” Kennedy staged last week at the department featuring boxer Mike Tyson and other celebrities and vowing to make healthy food “achievable, practical, affordable and within reach of every American family.”

A Super Bowl ad by the nonprofit MAHA (Make America Healthy Again) Center also featured Tyson. It touted the new dietary guidelines that Kennedy announced last month and urged viewers to “eat real food,” a favorite line of the secretary.

The Times said a poll taken in 35 competitive districts by Republican pollsters Tony Fabrizio and Bob Ward concluded the MAHA agenda is “widely popular across party lines,” but said Kennedy’s “vaccine skepticism” is “rejected by an overwhelming number of voters,” including most self-described MAHA voters.

Immigration. In perhaps its most notable shift, the administration ended its highly publicized, politically disastrous campaign to round up illegal immigrants in the Minneapolis area amid declining national support for not only its methods but also the immigration policy itself.

“The surge is leaving Minnesota safer,” border czar Thomas Homan said, citing the 4,000 arrests by Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents during the two months of Operation Metro Surge.

Meanwhile, an internal Department of Homeland Security document obtained by CBS News showed that less than 14 percent of nearly 400,000 immigrants arrested by ICE nationally in Trump’s first year back in the White House had charges or convictions for violent criminal offenses.

Europe. A year after Vice President JD Vance stunned our European allies by telling them they should no longer rely on the United States for their defense, Secretary of State Marco Rubio last week sent a more inclusive message.

“The United States and Europe — we belong together,” Rubio told the annual Munich Security Conference. He referred to the Europeans as “our cherished allies, our oldest friends” and stressed that the two shared a cultural heritage and belonged to “one civilization, Western civilization.”

Despite these efforts to make his policies more palatable, the public’s view of Donald Trump is pretty much fixed, like the tiger’s stripes and the leopard’s spots. Still, the White House hopes improved perceptions of Trump’s policies and the economy could still enable the GOP to avoid a midterm electoral disaster.

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