WHERE THE PRESIDENT STANDS – AT 11:46 A.M. ET:  As Mr. Trump starts his summit with Vladimir Putin, he is certainly aware that his poll numbers have slipped a bit.  From Rasmussen:

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Monday shows that 45% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Fifty-four percent (54%) disapprove. 

That represents a decline of about three points from last week, which in turn represented a decline of a few points from the week before.  Recently the president was as high as 51 percent.

No one knows exactly why this is happening.  The president did suffer a significant drop over his handling of the family separation/immigration issue, but then recovered.  Now he is slipping again.

I'll speculate that press coverage of his European trip, which emphasized only the negative, may be involved.  Even though the public has learned to turn off the extremism of the anti-Trump press, coverage has to have some effect. 

One trend we have noticed is that, often but not always, the president's numbers go up a few points during the week, so we'll wait until Friday to assess the polls further.  And remember, a poll is only a snapshot in time.  Mr. Trump was down ten percent, compared with Hillary Clinton, on the day he won the presidency.

July 16,  2018