The results are in: Most Americans think President Donald Trump did a great job negotiating with North Korea, despite the nonstop liberal media attack that suggested otherwise.
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research released Thursday finds that 55 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s diplomacy with North Korea, up from 42 percent in March and 34 percent last October. It’s the highest rating for the Republican president on any individual issue from the liberal AP-NORC poll since his inauguration.
The survey was conducted immediately after Trump concluded a one-day meeting with Kim, the first between a U.S. and North Korean leader in six decades of hostility, at which they agreed North Korea would work toward denuclearization in exchange for U.S. security guarantees.
Last September, Trump taunted Kim as “Rocket Man” in a speech at the United Nations, during which he vowed to “totally destroy North Korea” if the U.S. was forced to defend itself or its allies. Last week, after meeting with Kim, he tweeted, “there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea.”
“I hate to give Donald Trump any credit, but the fact is he was able to sit down with the man and possibly get the volume of that threat turned down significantly,” said Susan Leo, 66, a retired minister from Santa Cruz, California, who supported Democrat Hillary Clinton for president.
Even liberals unhappy with Trump overall are willing to admire his noble efforts at detente with North Korea.
Even as they broadly give Trump solid reviews for the summit, Americans remain skeptical about what sort of deal he may ultimately reach with a country controlled by what he once called a “depraved regime.” Critics have responded to the agreement struck with Kim at the summit with reminders that North Korea has never signed such a deal that it didn’t later break.
Roger D’Aquin, a retired security manager from New Orleans who voted for libertarian candidate Gary Johnson in 2016, said that he thought Trump’s tactics with Kim worked, but added, “I have no confidence that Kim wants to cooperate and wants to get rid of his nukes.”
“Overall Trump handled that well,” said D’Aquin, 50, who said he was happy Trump won the election.
Even among Republicans, just 25 percent say they’re very confident that North Korea will eventually agree to a deal to give up its nuclear weapons. A large majority of Democrats have little confidence the Kim regime will ever do so.
More Americans favor than oppose ending sanctions designed to limit North Korea’s economy (37 percent to 27 percent), and a large majority — 69 percent — say they’d favor a treaty marking an official end to the Korean War. There’s even some support for inviting Kim to the White House, with 39 percent of Americans open to an idea that 25 percent oppose.
Kim Oldfield, 67, of Culverville, California, a registered Independent who voted for Trump, said she was fine Kim coming to Washington as part of a nuclear deal.
“Sure, why not,” she said. “There’s a first time for everything.”
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The AP-NORC poll of 1,109 adults was conducted June 13-18 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.1 percentage points.
Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.