President Donald Trump's sliding polls on inflation and cost of living stunned MS NOW's Chris Hayes — who presented the latest data in a striking graph that could barely even fit how far his numbers had plummeted.
"The lesson is that people really care about gas prices," said Hayes. "Oil and natural gas, gasoline are the most important commodities in the world. They are what modern civilization runs on. I think that's about to change because of how cheap and incredibly clean energy has gotten. But right now, you quite simply cannot run your society without fossil fuels. There's no other option. When the prices go up, people get pretty upset about it."
"And right now, prices are, as you may have noticed, way, way up because Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu started a pointless war in Iran, a war that killed 6,000 people, injured countless others, displaced a million more, has caused untold human misery, and upended the lives of many, many people," said Hayes. "It has also, as you might have heard, happened to disrupt the global supply chain for the world's most important commodity, the thing modern civilization runs on. A disruption that continues day after day after day to this very day, even with a seemingly indefinite ceasefire."
"As soon as the U.S. started bombing, Iran started to control the Strait of Hormuz, something that was not the case before this war, something that was long warned about as the first thing would happen if you started a war with Iran," he continued. "And now everyone looks around in this country and they're pretty mad at Donald Trump for starting this war."
"Take a look at this chart," said Hayes, pulling up an image. "We were sort of marveling over this one today. A lot of charts don't read on TV, but I think this one gives you the point. So that's from pollster G. Elliott Morris, who tracks Trump's approval on a bunch of different issues. And you can see there's a bunch of issues. They all go in the same direction. They all go down. But the one that's the lowest, the one all the way at the bottom of your TV screen, the green line, that is Donald Trump's approval on inflation and the cost of living. Of course, that includes gas prices, because not only is gas a major expenditure for nearly every American, rising diesel costs in particular also make everything else more expensive. That doesn't even include the sort of inputs you get when you start getting to fertilizer and chemical products."
"As you can see, Trump is just almost incomprehensibly unpopular when it comes to prices," Hayes continued. "Literally off the chart. He is so underwater, in fact, that he is off the chart. In fact, that chart doesn't go low enough to show his massive -40 approval on the issue."
"According to one analysis, this is an amazing historical tidbit to give you a sort of sense of comparison. Donald Trump is currently less popular on inflation than ... Jimmy Carter," he added. "Carter, the guy who oversaw stagflation, the guy who was president during the '79 energy crisis, the guy with the sweaters and the malaise speech. I mean, just ask any voter at the gas pump."
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