Gallup polls Americans on Comey, Trump, and Dodd-Frank

NewsWorks Tonight host Dave Heller sits down for his weekly conversation with Gallup’s Frank Newport to talk about trends in U.S. opinion.

Former FBI Director James Comey’s image is not great, about as negative as positive. And prior to the testimony, a majority of Americans said they were not going to trust what he had to say, in one poll.

President Donald Trump’s image is worse, of course. His approval has slipped down a bit to around 37-38 percent since the Paris agreement announcement. Polls show they don’t buy his take on the Russian situation.

The House yesterday voted to relax constraints and regulations on the financial industry put in place after the 2008 financial crisis. The highly partisan vote in the House fits to some degree with divided American public opinion. At last update, 47 percent of Americans polled said there was too much government regulation of business and industry, 22 percent said too little, and 27 percent the right amount. That means the nation is split about 50-50 in a general sense.

Americans’ image of the banking industry is fairly low on a relative basis, but improved from where it was after the financial crisis of 2008; 27 percent of Americans have a great deal of confidence in banks.

And finally, according to a recent poll, 14 percent of the world’s population would move to a new country if they had the opportunity. But that statistic masks big differences by country and region. Over six in 10 residents of Sierra Leone would move if they could. Other countries where half want to move include Haiti and Albania.

The most desired destination is still the United States.