The numbers are in, and they don’t look good for the president.

The Cook Political Report observed Wednesday that Donald Trump’s  poll numbers are in a slump with key groups that helped him win in November, including young voters, Latinos, and independents.

Cook’s newly launched poll tracker found that Trump’s net job-approval rating had plummeted just since April 15, dropping by seven points from -3.9 percent to -10.7 percent. The most dramatic shifts were witnessed in the aforementioned groups: For 18- to 29-year-old voters, Trump’s approval dropped by -11.8 points. The president lost Latinos by 10.4 points, and independents soured on Trump by 7.9 points.

“It’s worth noting that even significant slumps in the president’s popularity don’t directly translate into shifts in downballot vote choice, particularly in a deeply polarized climate,” the report read. “It’s no guarantee that most—or even many—Americans who ultimately sour on the current occupant of the White House will be driven into the arms of the Democratic Party come next November.”

Instead, those voters may be more likely to stay home—though that wouldn’t bode well for Republicans jockeying for other political positions downballot.

It’s just the latest in a string of sinking reactions to the president’s performance. An ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll published last month found that Trump’s approval rating had plummeted to 39 percent—a 6 percent drop from February—marking the lowest first-100-day rating of a president since modern polling began roughly 80 years ago.

And an April report by the Conference Board found that its consumer confidence index had fallen by 7.9 points, bringing overall U.S. consumer confidence to 86 points. Consumer futures were brought to a 13-year low, with outlooks on the economy dropping by 12.5 points to 54.5 points—well below the threshold of 80 that “usually signals a recession ahead,” according to the Conference Board.

The root cause of the instability was “high financial market volatility in April,” which hit American consumers’ stock portfolios and retirement savings hard and fast, per the Conference Board’s report. That was almost singularly due to Trump’s machinations in the White House, which included releasing (and stalling) a sweeping and vindictive tariff proposal plan that economists observed (and the White House eventually confirmed) was founded on bad math.

Three federal agencies on Donald Trump’s chopping block have been saved by a federal judge.

U.S. District Judge John McConnell Jr. sided with a 21-state coalition Tuesday, issuing a preliminary injunction to halt one of Trump’s executive orders dismantling federal agencies that support libraries, museums, minority businesses, and mediation services. They included the Institute of Museum and Library Services, or IMLS; the Minority Business Development Agency, MBDA; and the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service, FMCS.

The March order also marked the end of four other agencies, including the United States Agency for Global Media, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the Smithsonian Institution, the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness, and the Community Development Financial Institutions Fund.

In a 49-page memorandum, McConnell wrote that Trump’s order blatantly ignored the separation of powers and violated the Administrative Procedure Act “in the arbitrary and capricious way it was carried out.”

“It also disregards the fundamental constitutional role of each of the branches of our federal government; specifically, it ignores the unshakable principles that Congress makes the law and appropriates funds, and the Executive implements the law Congress enacted and spends the funds Congress appropriated,” McConnell wrote.

The sweeping order translated to mass layoffs, grant freezes, and whopping reductions. Last week, another federal judge paused planned layoffs at the IMLS, responding to a related lawsuit brought by the American Library Association.

“The States have presented compelling evidence illustrating that the harms stemming from the dismantling of IMLS, MBDA, and FMCS are already unfolding or are certain to occur, in of light the significant reduction in personnel available and competent to administer these agencies’ funds and services and the elimination of certain programs that served the States,” McConnell noted.

A 25-year old DOGE bro oversaw the termination of lawyers at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last month, just days after they warned him certain stocks he owned were prohibited by employees, according to a Wednesday report by ProPublica.  

Gavin Kliger had been detailed to the CFPB in early March as part of DOGE’s efforts to take over and ultimately dismantle the ethics watchdog that oversees banks and manages vast troves of consumer data. 

But Kliger had committed a big no-no at the CFPB. His financial records indicated that he owned up to $365,000 in stock in companies that the CFPB was charged with regulating, including Tesla, which has been the subject of hundreds of consumer complaints. Kliger also owned stock in Apple and two cryptocurrencies, as well as additional companies on a “Prohibited Holdings” list, including Alphabet, Alibaba, and Berkshire Hathaway. In total, Kliger had made up to $715,000 in investments in seven barred companies. 

Kliger received an ethics notice on April 10, ProPublica reported. Shortly afterward, OMB Director Russell Vought moved forward with sweeping layoffs of federal employees, and sent Kliger and other DOGE officials an email with the subject line “CFPB RIF Work.” Another note sent to Kliger told him he’d been given access to the agency’s computer systems that “should allow you to do what you need to do.”

Kliger spent the next few days “screaming at people he did not believe were working fast enough” to disseminate termination notices, said one federal employee who used the pseudonym Alex Doe, in a sworn statement about the layoffs. On April 17, the termination notices went out, including to the ethics team, which had alerted Kliger to his prohibited investments. 

A White House spokesperson told ProPublica that Kliger “did not even manage” the layoffs, “making this entire narrative an outright lie.”

In April, the CFPB fired nearly 1,500 employees at DOGE’s direction, leaving only about 200 people employed there. The remaining workers have been forced to work around the clock to manage the transition, and they’ve begun including themselves in the layoffs. 

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker........

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