David Axelrod, a political adviser to former President Obama, predicted Tuesday that President Trump would get at least a short-term bounce in the polls from his well-received address to a joint session of Congress.
“If I’m the Trump team I’m very, very happy with this speech,” Axelrod said on CNN, where he is a political commentator.
“He went in there with a mind to reset and he wanted to illuminate this notion of chaos, he wanted to burnish those things he claimed as accomplishments and he wanted to get back to those basic themes and big goals that got him to where he is today.”
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“I think there will be an afterglow from this speech,” Axelrod continued. “He should get a bump in the polls, but I’ve learned in my own experience those things are fleeting and ultimately you’ve got to produce on the things you’re talking about or the memory of this speech will fade.”
Tens of millions of people are believed to have tuned in for Trump’s first speech to Congress. The Tuesday address was a notable departure in style and substance for Trump, who at times struck an optimistic tone and urged lawmakers to put aside petty squabbles to enact major changes.
The night was punctuated by several emotional moments: Trump invited into the chamber a college student suffering from a rare disease, a student who turned her grades around at a private charter school and the families of victims of violent crimes committed by people in the country illegally.
The most emotional came when Trump singled out Carryn Owens, the widow of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens, who was killed in a raid on an al Qaeda compound in Yemen days after Trump took office.
Carryn Owens received a long standing ovation from lawmakers as she fought back tears.
Trump has faced historically low approval ratings for a newly inaugurated president, holding just a 44 percent job approval rating in an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released over the weekend.