NPR85%
Takeaways from Trump's tough week, as war and gas prices take a toll 81%
By Domenico Montanaro0%
4/3/2026, 9:00:00 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 34 faulty reasoning types, including Biased Writer Voice, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Appeal to Emotion, with Negativity Bias as the most egregious example at 39.2% saturation with 455 hits. Analysis detected 2,752 faulty-reasoning hits from 1,161 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 73.4% and a BS Rank of 81% (3,293 of 16,813 articles). This article is worse (more manipulative) than 80.40% of the article peer group.
From the courts and the firing of his attorney general to tariffs, gas prices and the war in Iran, this week highlighted multiple stressors that are putting significant political pressure on President Trump in this second term.
Trump was already at a low point coming into this week, and he's hit a new one — a job approval rating at 39% in an average of the polls.
And, as Trump remains focused on an unpopular war with no clear end in sight, his approval rating is even worse on the issue voters continue to say they care about most: the economy.
So what happened over the last seven days, and what does it mean?
Here's a look:
Saturday
Millions turned out for more than 3,000 anti-Trump "No Kings" rallies across the country, from New York to Los Angeles, Minnesota to Texas.
Ex-pats even rallied overseas in Paris, London and Lisbon, Portugal.
Intensity of opposition to Trump is as high, or higher, than it's ever been.
A recent Fox News poll, for example, found the highest level of disapproval of the president in its survey across both of his terms (59%) with nearly half saying they "strongly" disapprove.
It also found 58% of respondents disapprove of the war in Iran.
Tuesday
Gas prices hit $4 a gallon on average.
They have leapt 37%, or more than $1 a gallon, since the start of the Iran war.
Trump also saw losses in two court cases: one related to funding for public media, the other about his White House ballroom construction.
Later in the week, the National Capital Planning Commission, packed with Trump appointees, gave its own approval of the plans for the project.
Wednesday
Trump became the first known sitting president to go to the Supreme Court for oral arguments.
He went to hear a case at the heart of his hard-line immigration approach.
On Day 1 of his second term, he signed an executive order calling for birthright citizenship — which is written into the 14th Amendment of the Constitution — to no longer be granted to babies born on U.S. soil to immigrants who crossed the border illegally.
A majority of the Supreme Court justices, including the three conservatives he appointed in his first term, seemed skeptical of the government's case and voiced significant concerns.
Trump stayed for his side's argument and then walked out shortly after the challengers began making theirs.
He later posted to his social media platform: "We are the only Country in the World STUPID enough to allow 'Birthright' Citizenship!"
(Roughly three dozen countries have birthright citizenship laws.)
Then, Trump delivered eyebrow-raising remarks during a private event at the White House.
Noting that the U.S. is "fighting wars," Trump said, "It's not possible for us to take care of day care, Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.
They can do it on a state basis.
You can't do it on a federal [basis].
We have to take care of one thing: military protection.
We have to guard the country."
The comments reflected Trump's priorities — and the heavy gravitational pull of war.
That night, he gave a prime-time address on the war with Iran.
On the expectation that Trump would offer a path to the war's end, markets rallied.
His speech offered no such clear exit.
Afterward, stock futures were down.
A speech apparently designed to reassure the public and calm Wall Street jitters had the opposite effect.
Thursday
It was the first anniversary of his "Liberation Day" when Trump leveled high tariffs on countries throughout the world.
Trump has suffered politically for it, as polling has shown majorities say Trump's policies, specifically his tariffs, are making things worse.
Tariffs, plus surging gas prices as a result of the war, have led to just a 31% approval of Trump's handling of the economy in a new CNN/SSRS poll out this week.
That's his lowest mark on an issue that was a strength in his first term — and a major reason he won a second term.
On the heels of Trump's Wednesday night address, oil prices spiked, and stocks were trading sharply lower.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down more than 600 points.
Stocks recovered after Iranian state media reported that the country was working with Oman on a protocol to "monitor" ships going through the Strait of Hormuz.
By 1:17 p.m.
ET, Trump announced Attorney General Pam Bondi was out at the Justice Department.
Bondi has been at the center of controversy around the incomplete release of the files related to Jeffrey Epstein, the firings of multiple Justice Department lawyers who prosecuted Jan. 6 defendants and career prosecutors who investigated Trump, while also launching investigations of several of Trump's perceived political enemies and fiercely defending the president.
Friday
As if there wasn't enough this week economically, the jobs report comes out Friday morning.
Despite the rate of unemployment remaining low, the labor market has shown signs of softening.
During Trump's presidency, there have been five months of negative jobs reports, including last month.
That's a stark difference from before Trump was sworn in when there were four straight years of monthly job gains.
(January 2025 also saw job losses; Democrat Joe Biden was president for most of that month.)
Presidents often get more credit and blame than they deserve on the economy, but Trump's tariffs and his decision to attack Iran alongside Israel have led to higher prices on goods and gas — even as inflation has held steady.
Given the war and economy are tied together, Trump, politically, needs a quick exit from Iran.
Getting bogged down in wars overseas, after all, can badly hurt a president's political standing.
But he's boxed himself in.
During his prime-time address, he offered no clear goals or timeline for when the war will be over.
Instead, he talked about how the U.S. would "hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks" and "bring them back to the Stone Ages, where they belong.
In the meantime, discussions are ongoing."
That doesn't sound like a war nearing an immediate end.
Trump also said the Strait of Hormuz, through which 20% of the world's oil passes, would "open up naturally.
It'll just open up naturally."
That has a certain COVID-response-like ring to it — in 2020, Trump said, "like a miracle, it will disappear."
That Trump is taking a political hit because of negative views of an economy tied to a war is as remarkable as it is ironic.
This is a president, after all, who was elected for a second time in large measure by promising to fix high prices and stay out of wars.
"We will measure our success not only by the battles we win," he said during his second inaugural address, "but also by the wars that we end — and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into."
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