Transcript: Trump Savagely Mocked on “The View,” Enraging White House

Sargent: What you just said before got me thinking. It does seem unlikely that a confrontation this big would happen without Trump’s explicit approval, doesn’t it? Which, if I’m right about that, then what we have to entertain is the possibility that it went down like this: either Trump saw “The View” and flipped out and got on the phone and said, Time to go out and threaten them—or someone, maybe an underling, saw an opportunity for Trump in this, flagged it for Trump, and said, What do you think, sir? Should we go after them? And he said, Absolutely, and put out Carr, the FCC chair, to do it as well. I think it probably went like that.

Marcotte: Yeah, I’m sure that Trump either watches “The View” or that was flagged for him. And Joy Behar is exactly the kind of woman that almost couldn’t be more well designed to just drive him up the wall because she is exactly the smart New York feminist that has always sneered at Donald Trump his entire life.

Sargent: Yeah, exactly. Well, I want to bring up this Gallup poll as the setup to the conclusion of this conversation. Extraordinary numbers. Trump is at 37 percent approval. On immigration, he’s at 38 percent, which is absolutely abysmal for his supposedly best issue. On the economy, he’s at 37 percent. On trade, he’s at 36 percent. And on the federal budget, he’s at 29 percent. That’s after this big, beautiful or big, ugly bill passed. These are awful numbers. Now it’s risky to rely on one poll, but we’re seeing a lot of other polls finding very similar things. This is historic levels of unpopularity we’re talking about here. What do you think?