What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls - Week Ending June 16, 2018

With the economy roaring along, President Trump turned his attention overseas this past week. As usual, many in the media disapproved, but voters are more willing to give the president the benefit of the doubt.

Following Trump’s weekend dustup with Canadian Prime Minister Justine Trudeau, voters are even more confident that ongoing renegotiations with Canada and Mexico are likely to make the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) better for America.

After all, voters tend to think Canada, like Mexico, benefits more from NAFTA than the United States does, and most have long agreed that the trade deal needs to be renegotiated.

Following his summit with dictator Kim Jong Un, voters are only slightly more positive about the president’s dealings with North Korea but are cautiously optimistic about the denuclearization deal the two men signed. Republicans are hugely confident that North Korea will denuclearize because of the deal Kim signed with the president, but Democrats hate the agreement.

Even before their summit meeting, however, fear of a North Korean nuclear attack among voters here was rapidly fading.

Also on the foreign policy front, the White House is currently in the early stages of planning a summit between Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in hopes of improving U.S.-Russia relations. Voters tend to think a Trump-Putin meeting is a good idea.

Despite reports that inflation is at a six-year high, the latest Rasmussen Reports Consumer Spending Update finds that Americans remain upbeat about the economy.

Forty-three percent (43%) say the country is headed in the right direction. That finding ran in the mid- to high 20s for most weeks during President Obama’s last full year in office.

Still, the president’s daily job approval rating was down slightly at the end of this momentous week.

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Democrats hold a slight lead again this week on Rasmussen Reports' Generic Congressional Ballot.

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The Justice Department’s inspector general has issued a report strongly critical of the anti-Trump bias among top FBI officials. Already by late April, 54% of voters felt a special prosecutor should be named to investigate how senior FBI officials handled the Hillary Clinton and Trump investigations. 

At the same time, just 37% think Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of the Trump campaign, driven at least in part by biased FBI officials, will ultimately turn out well for America. But only 16% of voters think Trump should fire Mueller.  

The U.S. Supreme Court this week upheld Ohio’s aggressive efforts to purge voter rolls of people who haven’t cast ballots in a while, much to the dismay of liberal voters’ rights groups. But voters agree that voter fraud is a bigger problem than legitimate voters being denied their rights. 

Sixty-nine percent (69%) think voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to vote, and 61% don't believe laws requiring photo identification at the polls discriminate against some voters as critics claim.

Sixty-three percent (63%) of voters continue to believe that when people move to America from other parts of the world, they should adopt America’s culture, language and heritage.

The latest Rasmussen Minute takes a closer look at the ongoing "Teacher Rebellion" in several states.

Former President Bill Clinton had an embarrassing #MeToo moment in a recent televised interview, claiming he, too, was a victim of the sex scandal that led to his impeachment. But most voters see Clinton as a sexual predator instead.

In other surveys last week:

-- Tomorrow is Father’s Day, and most Americans still think being a father is the most important role for a man to play.

-- The White House recently canceled a planned visit by the Super Bowl-winning Philadelphia Eagles, but only 28% of Americans think presidents should end the tradition of inviting championship sports teams for a visit.

-- Twenty-eight percent (28%) of those who have watched the Miss America pageant in the past say they are less likely to watch it in the future now that the swimsuit competition has been dropped.

Visit the Rasmussen Reports home page for the latest current polling coverage of events in the news. The page is updated several times each day.

Remember, if it's in the news, it's in our polls.