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Donald Trump’s first weekend as US President gets lowest approval rating of modern era

The President has already set to work on rolling back Barack Obama’s legacy and putting the Trump agenda into action

Maya Oppenheim
Tuesday 24 January 2017 13:20 GMT
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The historically low approval ratings mirror those which emerged before Mr trump took power
The historically low approval ratings mirror those which emerged before Mr trump took power (Reuters)

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Donald Trump might have only been President for a few days but his first weekend in the White House has already received the lowest approval rating of the modern polling era.

The poll, conducted by Gallop, found 45 per cent of Americans approved of the billionaire property developer’s first two days in the corridors of the oval office.

At first glance, this might not sound markedly low but it is significantly lower than the last two Presidents. Barack Obama had a 67 per cent approval rating during his first days as President in 2009 and George W Bush had 57 per cent of support in 2001.

The historically low approval ratings mirror those which emerged before Mr trump took power and a CNN/ORC Poll found he would enter the White House with the lowest approval rating of any recent President. It found Mr Trump’s popularity had dropped during the transition period and now stood at just 40 per cent. This is starkly lower than Mr Obama who was sworn in as President in 2009 with an 84 per cent approval rating.

Mr Trump immediately dismissed the findings on Twitter, declaring: “The same people who did the phony election polls, and were so wrong, are now doing approval rating polls. They are rigged just like before.”

In his first few days in office, the President has already set to work on rolling back President Obama’s legacy and putting the Trump agenda into action. Within hours of taking the oath of office, he signed an executive order aimed at repealing ObamaCare. He then signed a mountain of executive orders relating to his Cabinet appointments and other procedural affairs.

What’s more, numerous pages have disappeared from the White House website since he has become President, including a page paying homage to the history of civil rights in the US and Mr Obama’s work with the LGBT community.

Since he has taken office, it has been announced that Mr Trump will not be releasing his tax returns – despite the fact more than 209,000 people have signed a petition demanding the President immediately release his full tax returns.

On Sunday, Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway told ABC News: “The White House response is that he’s not going to release the tax returns.

“We litigated this all through the election, people didn’t care, they voted for him. He made this very clear. Most Americans are very focused on what their tax returns will look like while President Trump is in office, not what his look like.”

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