President Donald Trump’s popularity has reached its lowest level since his return to the White House.
The decline comes amid growing concerns from the public about the measures through which Trump is trying to expand his influence over federal institutions and private entities, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll.
A proportion of 42% of survey participants over the course of six days approved of Trump's performance as president, down from 43% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted three weeks earlier and from 47% in the hours after his inauguration on January 20.
The beginning of Trump's term shocked his political opponents as he signed dozens of executive orders to expand his influence over both government departments and private institutions such as universities and law firms.
While Trump's approval rating remains higher than that recorded for most of his Democratic predecessor Joe Biden's presidency, the Reuters/Ipsos poll results suggest that many Americans are uncomfortable with his measures to punish universities they consider too liberal and to install himself as president of the board of the Kennedy Center, a major theater and cultural institution in Washington.
A proportion of 83% of the 4,306 respondents stated that the US president should comply with federal court decisions even if he does not want to. Trump administration officials could be accused of defying justice for violating a federal judge's order to stop deporting alleged members of a Venezuelan gang who had no chance to challenge their expulsion.
Extending influence stirs panic
57% - including a third of Republicans - disagreed with the statement that "it is okay for a US president to withhold funding from universities if the president disagrees with how the university is being run."
Trump, who claimed that universities fail to combat anti-Semitism on campuses, froze huge sums of federally budgeted money for US universities, including over $2 billion for Harvard University alone.
An even larger proportion of respondents - 66% - stated that they do not believe the president should have control over top cultural institutions such as national museums and theaters.
Last month, Trump ordered the Smithsonian Institution, the vast museum and research complex that is a premier showcase for US history and culture, to remove "inappropriate" ideology.
Regarding a range of issues, from inflation and immigration to taxation and the rule of law, the Reuters/Ipsos poll showed that Americans who disapprove of Trump's performance outnumber those who approve on every aspect of the survey.
Regarding immigration, for example, Trump's strongest area of support, 45% of respondents approved of Trump's performance, but 46% disapproved.
Is America losing credibility?
59% of respondents - including a third of Republicans - stated that America is losing credibility on the global stage.
Additionally, three-quarters of survey participants stated that Trump should not run for a third term - a path Trump has said he would like to pursue, although the US Constitution prohibits this. The majority of Republican respondents - 53% - stated that Trump should not run for a third term.
The poll had a margin of error of plus/minus 2 percentage points.