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Hey there, it's Tamara Keith. And real quick, before we start the show, I want to take a minute to talk about public media. It's what makes the NPR Politics Podcast and other NPR podcast special. Public media was founded to inform, to educate, to expand our perspective. But as of this fall, federal funding for public media, including NPR and local

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context and analysis you need to make sense of the news coming out of Washington. This year alone,

we've covered President Trump's second term

from every angle, reshaping the federal government, launching a global trade war, an immigration

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Hey there, it's the NPR Politics Podcast.

I'm Tamara Keith. I cover the White House.

I'm Danielle Kurtzleben.

I'm Domenka-Montanaro, senior political editor and correspondent. And we are recording this at 1225 p.m. on Wednesday, December 17th, 2025. Today on the show, a new NPR PBS News Marist poll finds that Americans give President Trump low marks on his handling of the economy. So, Domenico, what are some of your big

takeaways from this poll? Well, I mean, we've been hearing all year about how affordability is the

big issue. So we dove in on just how much it's affecting people and what the cost of living means.

And a few things really jump out here. 70% of people say that their area

is no longer affordable for average families. That's up from 45% over the summer, which is a

huge jump. Sixty-one percent of people say that the economy is simply not working for them personally.

And a majority of people actually say that we are in a recession currently,

even though technically we're not in one, but clearly it's a thermometer of how people are

really feeling about whether or not they can afford things. Danielle, I'm just curious,

...