By LINLEY SANDERS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s second-term strengths look different from his first, according to new polling.

Once strengthened by economic issues, Trump’s approval is now relatively low on the economy — and he’s leaning on his stronger issues of crime, border security and immigration. Concerns about the economy and immigration helped propel him to the White House, but polling over the past year shows that Americans’ faith in the Republican president’s handling of the economy is low — particularly among independents — and his approval on immigration has fallen slightly.

Now, Trump’s strongest issues are border security and crime, but there were signs of potential weakness on crime in the most recent poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

President Donald Trump addresses the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly, Tuesday, Sept. 23, 2025, at U.N. headquarters. (AP Photo/Angelina Katsanis)

At the same time, Trump’s overall approval has been fairly steady in AP-NORC polling since the beginning of his second term. This month, 39% of U.S. adults approve of how Trump is handling his job as president, which is back in line with his average approval rating after a slight uptick in August. There was a similar pattern during his first White House term, when his approval stayed within a narrow range.

Here are the issues on which he’s been strongest and weakest in his second term:

Trump’s biggest strengths are border security and crime

Trump has turned border security into a strength of his second term, a sharp reversal from his first term in office.

Most Americans approve of Trump’s approach to border security. He gets higher marks on that than on his handling of the presidency overall or other issues that had previously been top strengths, including immigration and crime. This has also emerged as a unique strength of his second term. Only about 4 in 10 U.S. adults approved of Trump’s approach to border security in 2019, during which time Trump was focused on securing funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

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His approval on immigration is slightly lower than it was early in his second term, but it remains a bit higher than his overall job approval.

In March, about half of U.S. adults approved of his handling of immigration. But the most recent measure found his approval on immigration at 43%, just a tick higher than his overall approval rating.

Even with the slight dip, immigration remains a strength in a way it wasn’t in his first term. Throughout his first term, closer to 4 in 10 U.S. adults approved of his immigration approach — but when he started his second term, it was about half who approved.

Trump has taken firm steps to deport immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, and the new poll finds that a sizable share of Americans — about half — say Trump has “gone too far” in pursuit of that goal, roughly the same share as held that stance in a poll conducted in April.

His approval on how he’s handling crime is also down slightly to 46%, after reaching 53% in August as he deployed the National Guard to Washington. But that still exceeds his overall job approval, and it’s also an advantage among certain groups, like independents. About 4 in 10 independents approve of Trump’s approach to crime, compared with 25% who approve of his approach to the presidency overall.

Trump is weaker on the economy with independents

The economy is often a fraught point for presidents, and there are indications that Americans continue to be concerned about the country’s economic state.

Just 37% of U.S. adults approve of Trump’s handling of the economy. That’s down slightly from August, when 43% approved, but broadly in line with his overall approval.

The economy is a particularly weak issue for Trump among independents. Only about 2 in 10 independents approve of how Trump is handling the economy, much lower than the share who approve of his handling of border security and crime.

In Trump’s first term, closer to half of U.S. adults approved of his handling of the economy. This height of his success on this issue came at the beginning of 2020, right before the COVID-19 pandemic sparked an economic downturn. His approval on this issue varied throughout the pandemic, and about half of Americans approved of his economic approach just before he lost the 2020 presidential election. At that point, however, more Americans were more worried about the coronavirus pandemic than the economy. His approval has been consistently lower in his second term — when he came into office, only about 4 in 10 approved of how he handled the economy.

Trump’s lowest issues among Republicans: Trade and health care

Only about 7 in 10 Republicans approve of Trump’s approach to trade negotiations with other countries and health care — marking the lowest issue ratings among his base.

Americans overall aren’t thrilled about how he’s handling these issues, either. Only about one-third of U.S. adults approve of how Trump is handling either trade negotiations with other countries or health care. These have been steadily low in recent AP-NORC polls but roughly track with Trump’s overall approval. They were also similarly low in his first term.

About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say Trump has “gone too far” when it comes to imposing new tariffs on other countries. That includes about 9 in 10 Democrats but also roughly 6 in 10 independents and 3 in 10 Republicans. Very few Americans, including Republicans, want Trump to go further on imposing tariffs.

Trump is earning lower marks on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

About 4 in 10, 37%, of U.S. adults approve of the way Trump is handling the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, down slightly from the 44% who approved in March.

Slightly fewer Republicans approve of how Trump is handling the conflict — 72%, compared with 82% of Republicans who approved of the way Trump was handling the issue in March. Democrats are also slightly less likely to approve: 9% now, down from 14% in March.

Despite this, Trump’s approval on foreign policy has been steady. About 4 in 10 U.S. adults approve, in line with April.

The AP-NORC poll of 1,183 adults was conducted Sept. 11-15, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for adults overall is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.

By JAMIE STENGLE

DALLAS (AP) — Three people have been shot at an Immigration and U.S. Customs Enforcement facility in Dallas and the shooter is dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, the agency’s director said.

Acting ICE Director Todd Lyons confirmed the shooting during an interview on CNN on Wednesday.

“It could be employees, it could be civilians that were visiting the facility, it could be detainees,” Lyons said of those who were shot. “At this point, we’re still working through that.”

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said details were still emerging but the agency was confirming there were “multiple injuries and fatalities” at the field office. Noem said the motive remained unclear but noted there has been an uptick of targeting of ICE agents.

Dozens of emergency vehicles were seen along a highway near the facility.

ICE and Homeland Security didn’t immediately provide additional details.

A Fourth of July attack at a Texas immigration detention center injured a police officer, who was shot in the neck. Attackers dressed in black military-style clothing opened fire outside the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, southwest of Dallas, federal prosecutors said. At least 11 people have been charged in connection with the attack.

In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination, the Trump administration is following a very specific, very old script. It argues that political speech causes political violence, and that this speech must therefore be punished.

It is imperative that all defenders of free speech — whether on the left, right, or in the center — reject this narrative from the outset. For more than a century, the American understanding of free speech has been that political expression may only be punished when it incites imminent violence, for example, whipping up a crowd of angry people until they riot.

This principle of free speech, which traces back to Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes and the famous “clear and present danger” test, is designed to protect political beliefs, however wrong or dangerous they may be, by separating the expression of ideas from an individual’s choice to take unlawful action. It is the bedrock of the First Amendment as we know it. Breaking the distinction between protected political speech and illegal action is a frontal attack on the most basic freedom in our constitutional system.

So don’t take the bait. When the president, the attorney general, or others in the administration say that liberal speech caused Tyler Robinson to shoot Kirk, don’t respond by saying that Kirk’s speech also incited violence. Don’t say that outrageous remarks by a Fox News commentator caused a mass shooting at a homeless encampment in Minneapolis. Such claims of causation play directly into the Trump administration’s strategy: using political violence as an excuse to suppress speech it doesn’t like.

The words “clear and present danger” are so familiar that it’s worth reminding ourselves of what Holmes’ famous ruling actually said — and of how the Supreme Court has updated the rule since 1919, when he introduced it in the case of Schenck v. United States. The case involved a leaflet, printed in the middle of World War I, urging resistance to the draft, which the leaflet depicted as serving the interests of what Holmes called “Wall Street’s chosen few.” The defendant had been criminally convicted in federal court of violating the Espionage Act by obstructing recruitment and enlistment, as well as causing and attempting to cause insubordination in the military.

Holmes explained the test as follows: “The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.”

Put simply, Holmes was saying that political speech can only be banned as incitement if a court determines that the speech is very likely to cause illegal action (so that the danger is clear) and that the action is likely to occur immediately (so that the danger is present).

The innovation of the test was that the government could no longer allege that a given argument might cause or contribute to an illegal outcome somewhere down the line. By demanding clarity and presence, the clear and present danger test intentionally protected political speech — even speech calling for the violent overthrow of the federal government — absent the immediacy and probability of the speech causing that result.

In 1969, in the famous case of Brandenburg v. Ohio, the Supreme Court, in an unsigned per curiam opinion on behalf of the whole court, made the test even more protective of speech than Holmes had. It wrote that incitement to violence or other lawless action is constitutionally protected “except where such advocacy is directed to inciting or producing imminent lawless action and is likely to incite or produce such action.”

This new test specified that two separate conditions must be satisfied before speech can be punished as incitement. First, the speech must be intended by the speaker to produce immediate illegal action. And second, the speech must be likely to cause that immediate action.

Brandenburg is still good law. It governs any attempt by the Trump administration to suppress free speech in the name of reducing political violence. Every judge in every court in the land knows the test, and I expect that they will follow it faithfully.

But the principle behind Brandenburg and its predecessor, the clear and present danger test, needs to be defended on its own terms lest our free-speech tradition fail when put to the test of real-world violence and an administration keen to exploit it to suppress expression.

Ideas are one thing. The choice to act illegally is another. Those who express ideas must not be held responsible for the separate actions of people who choose to break the law.

The reason for this distinction is simple, even if it is not always obvious: If the government can suppress ideas it doesn’t like, we can’t have a democratic system in which we freely debate ideas.

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As Holmes noted, free speech is not absolute, and we have to draw the line somewhere. His famous example was that free speech “would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic.” But short of the intention to produce immediate violence, coupled with the reality that such violence will occur, our constitutional system has now been separating ideas from action for more than a century. We must not lose that tradition of freedom to a president who neither understands nor respects it.

Noah Feldman is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A professor of law at Harvard University, he is author, most recently, of “To Be a Jew Today: A New Guide to God, Israel, and the Jewish People.”

By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press

ROME (AP) — Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday named a successor to embattled New Orleans Archbishop Gregory M. Aymond, two weeks after the archdiocese agreed to a $230 million proposed settlement for survivors of clergy sexual abuse.

History’s first U.S. pope named Bishop James Checchio of Metuchen, New Jersey, as the coadjutor bishop of New Orleans. The position puts Checchio in line to automatically succeed Aymond when he retires.

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Checchio, 59, handled the fallout in Metuchen of the explosive 2018 sexual misconduct revelations of one of his predecessors there, then-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick. Prior to arriving in Metuchen in 2016, Checchio had served as the rector of the U.S. seminary in Rome for a decade.

The New Orleans archdiocese agreed Sept. 8 to a $230 million proposed settlement to end one of the U.S. church’s longest and most contentious battles over abuse claims. It had proposed in May to pay at least $179.2 million in response to more than 500 abuse claims, but victims’ attorneys opposed the deal as too low.

Survivors have until late October to vote on whether or not to approve the revised settlement. If approved by two-thirds of survivors, payments could begin disbursement by next year.

Aymond reached the mandatory retirement age of 75 last November, suggesting that the Vatican kept him in place to finalize the abuse settlement and allow for an organized handover to his successor.

The archdiocese had filed for bankruptcy in May 2020, rather than handle each abuse claim separately, which survivors say allowed church leadership to avoid facing tough questions in court.

In a statement posted on the website of the archdiocese, Aymond welcomed Checchio as his successor “with great hope for the future.” Aymond said he planned to continue as archbishop until the bankruptcy is concluded “and other matters of pastoral care” are accomplished.

Checchio, for his part, expressed gratitude for his nine years in Metuchen and said he looked forward to serving the people of New Orleans.

“I am certainly grateful to our Lord and to his vicar, Pope Leo XIV, for sending me to be a part of such a beautiful community,” said Checchio, a native of Camden, New Jersey, who has a degree in canon law and an MBA.

Aymond had resisted calls for his resignation over the church’s failures, which triggered a sweeping FBI probe and a cascading crisis for the Catholic Church. An AP investigation earlier this year revealed that the archdiocese had sought help from New Orleans Saints executives to help behind the scenes with damage control.

Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.