Trump back on offensive after brief respite in Paris

WASHINGTON – Agence France-Presse

U.S. President Donald Trump, fresh from a political holiday in Paris, went back on the offensive on July 16 as a new poll showed his popularity dropping amid doubts about Russian election meddling and deepening frustrations over stalled health care legislation.

In an early morning tweet, Trump used some of his toughest language against a favored target, the press, saying: “With all of its phony unnamed sources & highly slanted & even fraudulent reporting, #Fake News is DISTORTING DEMOCRACY in our country!”

Trump also sent one of his private lawyers, Jay Sekulow, onto five Sunday talk shows to argue that there was nothing illegal about his eldest son Donald Trump Jr.’s meeting last year with a Russian attorney following a promise of damaging information on Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.

“What took place at the meeting... is not a violation of any law, statute or code,” Sekulow told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

He repeated an earlier assertion that Trump is not the subject of any current investigation into alleged Russian efforts to tilt last year’s election in the Republican’s favor.

The concerted pushback came as a Washington Post-ABC News poll near the six-month point in Trump’s administration showed him facing significantly declining approval ratings, down from 42 percent in April to 36 percent today.

Similarly, the president’s disapproval rating has jumped five points to 58 percent, according to the survey of 1,001 adults.

Trump responded to the poll in a tweet, saying: “The ABC/Washington Post Poll, even though almost 40% is not bad at this time, was just about the most inaccurate poll around election time!”

Nearly half of respondents -- 48 percent -- said they “disapprove strongly” of the president’s performance in office, a low level never reached by ex-presidents Bill Clinton or Barack Obama, both Democrats, and reached only once by George W. Bush, during his second term.

And 48 percent said they saw American global leadership weakening since Trump entered the White House, while 27 percent said it is stronger.

That would seem to show mixed results, at best, from a series of high-profile foreign visits by Trump, including to Saudi Arabia and to a Group of 20 meeting in Germany, where he met with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump’s Bastille Day visit to Paris came a day after the poll ended.

Two thirds of respondents said they do not trust Trump, or trust him only somewhat, in negotiating with foreign leaders.