What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls - Week Ending April 22, 2017

America First was high on the Trump administration’s agenda this past week.

On Tuesday, President Trump signed his latest executive order, this one directing federal agencies to “aggressively promote and use American-made goods and to ensure that American labor is hired to do the job.” Voters are all for the order to “buy American, hire American,” even though many suspect it will cost taxpayers more.

Americans strongly believe in buying things made in the U.S.A., and most don’t think the government protects domestic businesses enough.

Voters agreed with the president’s emphasis on new jobs in his first major speech to Congress earlier this year.

On the foreign relations front, Vice President Mike Pence warned North Korea earlier this week that the U.S. military is ready to respond if that country persists in its nuclear threats against the United States. Most voters view Pence favorably and believe he is qualified to be president.

The new administration is taking a much harder line against North Korea than President Obama did. Voters strongly consider North Korea a danger to the United States and tend to support Trump’s tough response to that country’s nuclear weapons program.

The growing tensions between the United States and North Korea are the subject of this week’s Rasmussen Minute.

The president’s daily job approval appears to be rebounding. It rose again to the 50% level two days this week after falling to a low of 42% at the beginning of the month. Trump ended the previous week with a strongly supported airstrike against a Syrian military airfield suspected of launching a chemical weapons attack and the confirmation of his first U.S. Supreme Court nominee.

The same pollsters who called the presidential election wrong last November show the president with a worse job approval rating than we do. Rasmussen Reports called it right in November, so you decide who’s got it right now.

Forty-one percent (41%) of voters now think the country is headed in the right direction. That’s a five-point improvement from the week before. Prior to the latest finding, the right direction number had been dropping in recent weeks from the mid-40s following Trump’s inauguration.

Still, with several special congressional elections on the calendar this year, 46% of voters say Trump will hurt Republican candidates running for Congress. But 60% of GOP voters see the president as a boost to their candidates.

Voters also say the current Congress isn't helping the candidates of either major party.

Congress is wrestling with tax reform, and Americans like the idea of a flat tax rate system. But they aren’t ready to eliminate tax deductions even if it means lower tax rates.

Most voters say they want to pay their fair share in taxes. But 45% of Americans still think that they are paying more than their fair share.

Nine-out-of-10 Americans (89%) said they would meet last Tuesday’s deadline for filing their income taxes.

In other surveys last week:

-- United Airlines is in hot water after a video went viral of security forcibly removing a man from a plane to make room for traveling employees. But Americans are more likely to blame the passenger than the airlines for such disputes.

-- Social media sites like Facebook and Twitter are more ubiquitous than ever these days, but just 17% of voters think social media has had a good impact on politics in America.

-- Thirty percent (30%) of voters under 40 said last fall that their political opinions are influenced by their family and friends on social media sites.

-- Most Americans say they've done their part to help clean up the environment, but far fewer see Earth Day - celebrated annually on April 22 - as a motivating factor.

Visit the Rasmussen Reports home page for the latest current polling coverage of events in the news. The page is updated several times each day.

Remember, if it's in the news, it's in our polls.