What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls - Week Ending August 19, 2017

Multiple attacks by terrorists in Spain capped a tumultuous week in which President Trump faced sustained attacks from the media and even his own party. But Republican voters are getting pretty unhappy with their leaders in Congress.

The president has criticized Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the Senate’s failure to pass a health care repeal bill before the August recess, and more than a third of likely Republican voters now think McConnell should step down. Nearly as many GOP voters want House Speaker Paul Ryan to go. 

McConnell is now the most unpopular of the top congressional leaders, an honor House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi had previously held for years.

At the same time, 63% of Republicans - and 50% of all voters - believe that it is impossible for Trump to do anything that the media will approve of.

Nearly half of voters are following the news more closely these days, but Trump supporters and those in his party are starting to tune the news out more.

However, maybe Republicans in Congress who won’t work with the president are on to something. Voters, for now at least, say they’re more likely to reward the anti-Trumpers at the polls.

The president still isn't getting credit for the increasingly good economic news. A million new jobs have been added to the economy since he took office, but just 42% give him positive marks for job creation. Nearly as many (37%) say he's doing a poor job.

Voters consider Trump less ethical than President Obama, and many still suspect that he has less ethics that other politicians. 

Despite the media furor over what the president did and did not say following last weekend's incident in Virginia, his approval ratings appear little changed.

In the United States earlier this month, the number of voters who said the terrorists are winning the war on terror fell to a five-year low.  But in April, just 10% of Americans believed Europe was winning the war on terror. 

While tension in Korean persisted through the week’s events, Trump was on to North Korea 19 years ago, and three presidents failed to heed the warning. The latest Rasmussen Minute looks at Trump's long-time awareness of the North Korean threat and what he's saying about it now.

Few Americans consider China an ally, and most think Beijing should be making more of an effort to curb the nuclear threat from North Korea. 

Most voters continue to believe newcomers to America should adopt our culture, language and heritage.  Sixty percent (60%) rate U.S. society as fair and decent.

In other surveys last week:

-- Thirty-six percent (36%) of voters say the country is heading in the right direction.

-- Forty-four percent (44%) of American Adults say abuse of opioid drugs is a major problem in the area where they live.

-- The president is considering pardoning former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was recently found guilty of criminal contempt for ignoring a judge’s order to stop traffic patrols targeting illegal immigrants. But most voters don’t think the president should pardon Arpaio.

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.