AMNA NAWAZ: From boisterous town halls to an upcoming budget fight in Congress, there's a lot to unpack already in this week in politics.

For that, we're joined by our Politics Stakes duo.

That's Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

Great to see you both.

Amy, kick us off here now, because we have seen lawmakers returning to Congress after holding some town halls in their home districts, sort of getting their first real-time temperature check in this second Trump administration, and they're seeing some anger and some frustration.

Here's just one example that was seen by Congressman Mark Alford in Kansas City, Missouri.

Take a listen.

REP. MARK ALFORD (R-MO): How many of them do you think should be fired without cause, where it is reasonable?

MAN: There's a legal and proper way to downsize the government.

REP. MARK ALFORD: Guys, guys, guys, we're not -- this isn't a junior high cafeteria.

AMNA NAWAZ: Amy, a lot of that related to the mass firing between the federal work force, and he is not alone.

What do these Republicans do now?

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Yes.

Well, that's an excellent question, is that I think what they're looking at for the very first time is the reality of all politics is local, even though they have been in many ways just talking in a more national -- have been on a more national focus for quite some time, which is, if you look at the polling nationally, the idea of cutting government waste, of firing excess government workers sounds really popular, until it comes to your home district.

Now, outside of this area that we sit in here in Washington, D.C., most congressional districts have maybe 2, 3 percent of their total work force is employed by the federal government.

But that doesn't mean it's not going to trickle out into other areas, meaning the people that are their suppliers or their contractors, their families.

And here's another thing we know.

Angry people tend to show up, not just to town halls, but they tend to show up to vote as well.

And so I think what Republicans are trying to do now, we have been hearing and seeing some of these stories, trying to find ways to do little carve-outs for programs or other priorities in their districts, trying to take those off the chopping block.

That's going to be really, really hard to do.

The other thing I heard in talking with one Republican source is that what folks, Republicans are really worried about is that it's Elon Musk who they see as -- the voters see as being a big part of this problem, that they -- that Republican members have to figure out a way to message about Musk being unelected and that these voters coming in saying, hey, how did we give the keys to somebody that we never voted for?

AMNA NAWAZ: Tam, it's a number of Republicans who've seen this kind of anger, but a few Democrats as well are facing some anger in their town halls from their constituents for not fighting hard enough against this administration, in their view.

Take a look at what congressman Paul Tonko of New York faced.

MAN: I was so proud that my representative was on the front line right there.

But I thought about Jimmy Carter and I thought about John Lewis.

And I know what John Lewis would have done.

He would have gotten arrested that day.

MAN: Make them -- make them outlaw you.

We will stand with you.

We will be there with you.

I will get arrested with you.

AMNA NAWAZ: Tam, what do you take away from all this?

TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: Yes, Democrats are certainly frustrated and they are they are going out there and they are protesting at Tesla dealerships.

Of course they're going to show up to town halls where their members of Congress are.

And Democratic leaders have not exactly given them, given Democratic voters who are frustrated and angry and worried about the state of the country, they haven't given them a lot of hope.

Hakeem Jeffries, the minority leader at one point, he sort of walked to this back, but said, well, there's not much that we can do.

We're in the minority.

And the reality is that Democrats are in the minority in both the House and the Senate.

In the House, in particular, the minority party doesn't have a lot of power to do much of anything.

AMNA NAWAZ: Meanwhile, the context for all this, of course, is the latest polls that we're seeing.

In two new polls, Amy, you have seen, CNN and The Washington Post now show 47 and 45 percent approval ratings for President Trump, 52 and 53 percent disapproval ratings.

That's sort of the flip of what we saw earlier this month in one poll.

But at the same time, we're also seeing polls like this Harvard/Harris poll, which shows Mr. Trump holding steady at 52 percent approval and a majority support for many of his individual policies.

What do you take away from these numbers?

AMY WALTER: So I'd like to look at averages, which is my go-to.

And if you look at the average of all the polls I have been taken since Donald Trump was first inaugurated until now, what you see is kind of a steady decline in his overall approval rating, a hike in his negative rating of about eight points.

So he's become eight points less popular in -- basically in the last month.

The other thing I'm looking very closely at, and I think is going to be really important as we go forward, remember, in 2020, Donald Trump's overall approval rating was low, but people gave him high approval ratings for how he was handling the economy.

We saw this in the 2024 election as well.

Now what we're seeing, really, what I think is for the first time opinions about Donald Trump's handling of the economy are now equally -- he's are underwater in the same way that his overall approval ratings are.

In other words, I think what we're hearing from voters is, they're not really particularly happy with the direction of the economy, which is obviously something Trump ran on.

And we saw it in the data coming from the Michigan Consumer Index this last week.

Voters are more pessimistic now about the economy than they have been since the fall of 2023.

AMNA NAWAZ: Tam, what about you?

What's your take?

TAMARA KEITH: Yes, a lot of the things that President Trump has been doing since taking office have very little to do with the consumer economy in terms of bringing prices down.

He's -- he and Musk have had this focus on slashing the government.

And, yes, they argue that indirectly eventually that could bring down the deficit and that could potentially bring down prices through some sort of magical math formula.

But the other thing that President Trump has spent a lot of time doing is talking about tariffs.

He did it again today.

And polls are showing that voters, not all voters, but a majority of voters agree with the vast majority of mainstream economists who say that raising tariffs is functionally raising taxes on the American people.

And so Trump's approach to the economy, which in some ways is keeping allies and adversaries off-balance, is also keeping American consumers off-balance at the same time that prices aren't coming down, there are growing concerns about inflation, egg prices are still up, and the promises that deregulation and freeing up oil and gas, drill, baby, drill, is just going to somehow magically bring all prices down, it hasn't happened yet.

Trump is saying it's not going to be his economy until it's been six or 12 months, but voters are beginning to look at the economy and have questions.

One other thing to add, all of these federal firings could show up in the jobs report that comes out next month.

AMY WALTER: Right.

AMNA NAWAZ: Amy, I have less than a minute left, but I got to ask you, because Republicans in the House have to pass a budget plan.

AMY WALTER: Right.

AMNA NAWAZ: We have already got at least 11 so far Republican lawmakers are saying they have questions or concerns about some of the potential for Medicaid cuts... AMY WALTER: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: ... in particular in the proposal put forward by Speaker Johnson.

These are some of them right there.

They have a slim majority.

AMY WALTER: Yes.

AMNA NAWAZ: With 11, the math ain't mathing, as they say.

AMY WALTER: No.

AMNA NAWAZ: What's going to happen?

AMY WALTER: Well, they have got to decide, the speaker has to decide whether he wants to hold this vote at all or whether they go back to the drawing board.

But I think this is going to be the issue for the next, I don't know, how many months, the reality of having a very slim majority.

And if they want to pass all the things they want to pass, they have got to make deep cuts into programs that are really popular.

AMNA NAWAZ: I feel like we're going to be talking about this a lot more.

AMY WALTER: A lot.

AMNA NAWAZ: Amy Walter, Tamara Keith, always great to see you both.

Thank you.

AMY WALTER: You're welcome.

TAMARA KEITH: You're welcome.