How Bad Polls for Trump Could Translate in Midterms; French Towns Impose Curfews After Riots

0:00I want to write funny books. So this kid who's having a little bit of a worse time than you are, I think is the magic to the books. It's the thing that's appealing. Hi, everybody, and welcome to Here's the Scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Dasugan. So today on the show, we're talking about an incredibly popular children's book, right? Diary of a Wimpy Kid. And we have the author of all of those books on the show with us today, Jeff Kinney, because his 21st book is out tomorrow. It's called Fight or Flight. And today on the show, we also have a special guest, one of Jeff Kinney's biggest fans, and that is my kiddo, Azar.

0:35Also, we're talking about the protests in France, which have really blown up over the weekend. There have been riots. There has been looting as well. And it seems as if amidst these protests, there is a movement that is building from the right wing. Up first, though, we've got some new polling from the NBC News decision desk, and it does not look good for Republicans ahead of Election Day. So President Trump's approval rating is down to 34 percent. It's a new low for his second term. 71 percent of Americans say that the country is on the wrong track. But will these numbers translate at the ballot box?

1:13And do they give us a sense of whether Democrats are on track to take back control of Congress? For this, I want to bring in NBC News Chief Data Analyst, Steve Kornacki. Hi, Steve. Hey, yes. Let's talk about that top line number first, okay? Approval ratings. 51 % of the poll respondents strongly disapprove of the president's performance, which is a second-term high for him. But since he's not on the ballot, how are you predicting or how are you seeing this could potentially work against GOP candidates heading into November? Yeah, I mean, look, I think the baseline here is maybe, you know, we think of a presidential election.

1:53We're always saying, well, is this one going to win? Is this one going to win? In a midterm, it tends to almost always go poorly for the president's party. And really the question becomes how poorly is it going to go? And certainly these numbers are aligned with a night that's going to go a lot better for Democrats than it goes for Republicans. The question is just is one of degree, I think. And even to that point, like when you when you look at this poll, I think one thing we should be clear on when we say 34 percent approval. This is a little bit of a different poll that we have here, the decision desk poll.

2:21That is a 34 percent number among all adults. So what we've done in this poll is cast a very wide net. But that doesn't measure whether they're registered voters or not. When you get to the registered voter sample, that number does go up to 39. And then even when you get to registered voters, then the question is not every registered voter votes in an election. So who's actually turning out from there? And I thought one of the interesting things that we found in this decision desk poll is that when you ask folks about their intent to vote in the midterm, those who say they're definitely going to vote, the Democrats have a double-digit advantage over Republicans.

2:53I think there's a huge enthusiasm edge on the anti-Trump side, on the Democratic side right now. and the ones who say probably and no, I won't vote, double-digit Republican. So again, there's room there for the Republicans. This is one of the things you see the president trying to do right now, go fire up his base. If they can succeed to some degree in that, they can make this less bad. But again, overall, the numbers certainly do point to something that will not be good for them. Anything big stand out to you in this poll aside from what we've talked about so far? You know, the other thing I think we're all asking, not just about the decision desk poll, But any poll that's out there right now is just we have seen, you know, in certain types of states in particular, the Trump vote, the Republican vote get missed.

3:37You know, we saw it in 2020, 2016. Sure, yeah. We saw it in some states in 2018. And I only raise that because when you look at some of these states that are going to decide like the Senate, Ohio or Iowa or Kansas or places like that, you're talking about generally red states with large blue collar white populations. That's the demographic that's been missed a number of times in the polling. So you do have to, it's just in your head, is that happening again this time? So not to knock what you analyze every single day. I like where this is going. That's like no offense, but offense taken. Folks will be like, you can't trust the polls anymore.

4:12Yeah. You can't trust them. When we're looking at some of these polls and predicting like, are Democrats going to win control of Congress? Are they going to win control just of the House? House, not the Senate. There's discrepancies, right? There are some polls that are saying Democrats are going to sweep, right? House and Senate. There are some polls that are saying it's going to be a much tighter race. Why does this discrepancy exist? Can you kind of like help explain that for us? Yeah. I mean, look, the polling overall right now, if you take it at face value, is very encouraging for Democrats and very discouraging for Republicans.

4:46You know, It's got Democrats to some degree ahead, generally, in all of the Senate battlegrounds. It's got states that you never thought would be part of the battleground, like South Carolina potentially being competitive, even like a Nebraska potentially being competitive. And every now and then we see hints from House races that weren't really on the radar that look like they might be competitive based on the polling. But again, I think that you sort of counter that with the polling misses that we've seen tending to be these blue-collar, you know, older blue-collar white voters who tend to be pro-Trump, tend to be pro-Republican.

5:23How are they missed, I guess? How are those people missed? There's the debate. There's the question in polling. Is it because they don't pick up their phone? Is it because they're not on the call list? Is it because the pollsters are missing them? Is it because they're avoiding the pollsters? That's the question. And there's all sorts of theories out there why that the, you know, sort of blue collar, maybe Trump friendly working class, you know, older working class voter that gets contacted. Less enthusiastic. Yeah. They don't. Maybe they don't trust the pollster. Maybe the pollsters align with a media outlet that they think is biased against.

5:52I don't, you know, but it seems to me there's a disparity there. And that's the term for all this ends up being non-response bias is the outcome of the poll being distorted by the people you didn't get to respond. didn't get them into the poll. And that's been a huge question in polling for the last 10 years. And is that factored in to coming up with the percentages? Well, no, you can't factor in because you don't know. You just have no idea. What it's factored into, though, is everybody looking, and when you look at a poll in like Kansas and you see the Democrat leading the Senate race there by a point, and you're thinking, well, geez, you can go back to October 2020 and there were a couple of polls of the Kansas Senate race that had that like neck and neck.

6:30You go to 2014, there were polls that had the Democratic aligned candidate in 2014. ahead in October. And in both cases, the Republican won the Senate race by 10 points, 11 points. So, you know, they're just like, you look at the demographics of the state, you look at a history like that, and you say, boy, is this just about to happen again? I know you don't like doing predictions, so I'm not going to put you in that position yet again, because I'm doing it, I feel like, every week now when you come on, I'm like, predict for us this. But is it going to be kind of a surprising night, would you say?

6:59Frankly, if the Democrats have a massive, massive night here, you know, that would be its own kind of surprise. Because I think a lot of people are conditioned for everything we're talking about here for the last decade to say, even when things look good for the Democrats in the polling, there's a yeah, but. Even if the Republicans don't win, they survive enough, right? So if the Democrats get a thorough, comprehensive, you know, Senate majority, you know, that'd be its own kind of surprise. And then there's the other one that I'm kind of curious about is the Democrats have a huge night in some places, and then Republicans have some sort of feathers in their cap and they win like a Michigan.

7:33They win a Minnesota. You know, they do New York. There's a, interestingly, a Democratic congressman in Long Island who I think could be in trouble for some very specific kind of local factors. The Republicans pick off some blue state, blue area wins that in some way, at least psychologically, offset big Democratic wins elsewhere. So you just did Sunday Night Football last night, right? And then you're like back on the on the politics train the next day. Do you ever get your, like, facts and numbers mixed up? Have you ever, like, messed it up when you're on Sunday Night Football and you're like, has that ever happened?

8:07Well, we had the Cowboys last night, and I talk about the Texas set, so I'm in the same state, at least, you know, so I got that. Steve Kornacki, thank you. Got it, yes. All right, coming up. Protests in France have turned violent, and political parties are pointing fingers across the spectrum from the far left to all the way to the far right. Who is to blame, and what does it mean for schools? That is next. And also, while you're listening to those ads, do us a favor, share this episode with a friend. It is a great way for us to find new listeners. I'll see you after the break.

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9:45And we are back with Here's the Scoop from NBC News. So we got some pretty jarring footage out of France this weekend. Videos showing a 19th century town hall in Limoges in flames. The clock tower collapsing after protests turned violent.

10:03Authorities are saying more than half a million people took part in these demonstrations. And more than 2 ,000 have been arrested. And they say they've asked some cities to impose curfews in an attempt to regain control of the situation. So I want to bring in NBC News foreign correspondent Raf Sanchez, who's been following this for us. Hi, Raf. Hey, yes. Okay, these images are jarring. I mean, they are really wild that are coming out of France right now. Tell me about how these protests have now turned violent, why they have turned violent. So we've seen protests in France going on for a couple of weeks, and at the heart of these protests have been high school students, and they've been protesting for actually really basic things.

10:45They say their classrooms are in disrepair. They say there's not enough teachers, there's not enough textbooks, not enough computers, like really kind of bread and butter issues. They've been going on for a while. There have been pockets of violence, but for the most part, they've been peaceful. And actually, people have been pretty sympathetic to these kids who just want an education. That changed in a big way over the weekend. So we saw half a million people take to the streets in Paris to take part in peaceful demonstrations, not just about the schools, also about the state of the economy, the high cost of living in France.

11:21But in the hours after those planned demonstrations, things descended into violence, not just in Paris, but really all over the country, Calais up in the north, Marseille down in the south. Jarring is the right word. You mentioned that town hall in Limoges, 19th century building. It survived two world wars only to be burned down by these rioters. A lot of people commenting. If you look at the video, the spire collapsing reminds people in a very painful way of Notre Dame burning. So you also saw a lot of looting, people in masks breaking into these really high-end luxury stores like Louis Vuitton, Lacoste, in central Paris and the shopping districts around the Champs -Élysées.

12:07A lot of violence, a lot of people clashing with riot police and a situation that really felt to people in France and around the world like it was out of control. How is the government responding? How is the French president, Emmanuel Macron, responding? So the French government is trying to get back on the front foot because it really seems like they were caught off guard by how bad this was over the weekend. So just to give you an example, President Macron spent Friday night at a Celine Dion concert with his wife, bopping along to some classic hits. He did not see him like a national leader who seemed at all aware of the possibility that his country was about to erupt into very, very widespread disorder.

12:48So you're seeing the French government now imposing partial curfews in a number of cities. They're talking very tough. They're saying they're going to prosecute anybody who took part in the rioting. They're saying people who took part in looting are going to have to pay for the damage they caused to the shops. I can tell you the scale of this rioting is so big, I would be astonished if they were able to find even a fraction of the people involved, let alone get them through what is already a pretty backlogged court system. The French president did address the nation on Sunday night, so 24 hours after the worst of the rioting.

13:25He said he understood people are really feeling the economic pain right now, but he said that there's no excuse for violence. So there's elections around the corner. I mean, I think in April they're coming up, right? Marine Le Pen from the far right, is this an opportunity for her to really gain traction? She has been compared in the past to kind of the rise of President Donald Trump, her political leanings also being compared to him. Yeah, so let's set the scene a little bit here. President Macron is in his last six months in office. He's been in power for 10 years. He's term limited. He's not running again in these elections.

14:00and the French presidential elections work in two stages. So you have a first round, which is going to be in April, and then a second round in May. And what is looking quite possible right now is that the two candidates who make it through the first round into the runoff second round are going to be one candidate from the very far left, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and one candidate from the far right, who you mentioned, Marine Le Pen. And so you potentially are going to have French voters facing a complicated choice between the far left, far right. People in the center may feel like they don't really have anywhere to go.

14:38Sounds familiar. And the feeling right now is that these scenes of chaos are really helping the far right, who are already doing extremely well in the polls. But the far right are saying that the government has totally lost control, that there's lawlessness in the cities. They're tying this to immigration, which it's not clear that there is like a really strong link between what's happening here and immigration. We talked about how this has started with high school students. But a general sense of disorder often helps the far right. And it certainly seems like Marine Le Pen is looking to capitalize here.

15:20Macron has kind of stopped short of declaring a national emergency. We do have, though, some cities are taking action. I know Marseille, for instance, imposed a ban on public gatherings. You have curfews being imposed in other places. What happens next here? It's a really good question. Everybody is kind of holding their breath. The big, big, big concern in France is that this may be the beginning, not the end, of a wave of political violence that continues through the elections, potentially past the elections. If you have the far left and the far right running against each other, I think there is a real concern about extremist supporters on both sides potentially taking to the streets, confronting each other there.

16:02It's hard to overstate how important France is. It is a permanent member of the UN Security Council. It is a nuclear weapons state. It's one of the leading countries in the EU. And so to have large-scale disorder in a country that important is really, really worrying, not just in France, but really around the world. Raf Sanchez, thank you. Thank you. All right. We're going to take a very quick break. And when we are back, me and a very special guest are talking to Jeff Kinney, author of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series.

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18:15And we're back with Here's the Scoop from NBC News. So we all have our favorite childhood books. Growing up, mine was probably Ramona by Beverly Cleary. But for my kids, nothing tops the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series written by Jeff Kinney. And of course, they are not alone. 20 books, 300 million copies sold worldwide, eight movie adaptations. Greg Hefley, a.k.a. Wimpy Kid, is a global fan favorite. Well, tomorrow, the 21st Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, Fight or Flight, hits stores. And to find out more about this huge phenomenon, I'm going to bring in two people. author Jeff Kinney, and our local expert, my son, Azar.

18:56Welcome, guys. Awesome. Thanks so much for coming. Aren't you supposed to be in school? I took him out of school. Can you say hello, Az? Hello. So you actually started drawing comics, right? Yes. Did you ever think that you would go from that to this? Gosh, I never thought that I'd get published as a cartoonist because what I wanted to be as a newspaper cartoonist like Charles Schultz or Bill Watterson. And I thought I had a shot at that, but nobody liked my work. Unfortunately, I failed. And so you're laughing at that. Because I love stories of failure. Like, I think it's such a good moment, especially for kids, like my kiddo Azzer, to understand that, like, just because you fail at something doesn't mean you can't succeed eventually.

19:41It is true. And I did eventually succeed. So I, yeah, for about three years I tried to become a newspaper cartoonist. That didn't work out. And then I worked for eight years on Diary of a Wimpy Kid. But the whole time I was working on it, I thought this is going to fail because, of course, that's all I'd ever gotten were rejection letters. You thought that in your head the whole time? Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. But I figured I had to see it through. Like, this was my opus. This was my thing. So everything after that in my life, everything after the moment of publication has been like the Truman Show.

20:13Everything else feels like, I feel like the veil is going to be lifted one day and somebody's going to say, you thought you were famous for drawing stick figures? Well, the joke's on you. You're the subject of an elaborate prank. So your next book, right? The 21st, Fight or Flight. I have it right here in front of me. You tackle bullying in this. This is the first time that you've gotten into bullying. I've done it lightly in other books, but I've never made it the actual subject of a book. And I didn't know how to pull it off. But what I'm trying to do with each book is I'm trying to explore an aspect of childhood that feels true to every kid around the world.

20:49So my last book was called Party Pooper, and it was about a birthday. And of course, I have that one too. That's right. As are, you know, that a birthday is a big moment in a kid's life and you just turned 10 just the other day. Right. And so bullying, you know, is a thing or conflict is a thing in most kids' lives. But I needed to do it in a way that didn't treat the topic lightly. I needed to go at it from a different angle. So I have Greg talking about how he's a coward and he comes from a long line of cowards. He's a chicken. That's okay with him. And then he starts to study bullies like a zoologist.

21:25He starts to study their habits, their territories, their feeding times, if you will. And so that helps him to survive in middle school. But he writes it all down in a binder. and then he loses the binder. Oh, no. And the bullies get, they get hold of all the notes that Greg's taken on them, which brings him into conflict with the biggest bully in the school. I don't want to spoil it for Azar since you're going to read it soon, but that's what happens in this book. He's got it on pre-order already. What's interesting to me about your books is the generations that it spans. Like producers on my team read your book when they were kids.

22:03Have you adjusted your storytelling and you're writing for kids today versus kids then, especially now because they're exposed to so much more through social media. And the world is different. Yeah, it's funny. When I started writing these books, I was 28 years old. So I was much closer to my childhood than I am now. Yeah, you've gone through a lot since then. That's right. Had your own children. That's right. Yeah. So I'm 55 now. I'm further away from who I was as a kid. But I still feel like I can access that part of me. I was sort of a messy kid. I made a lot of mistakes. I was selfish. And I had a lot of the attributes that Greg Hefley has.

22:40And I think those are things that a lot of us have. Even today as an adult, I make a lot of mistakes. I goof around. And I try to capture that spirit. And I hope that the book still feels relevant. The fact that Azar is reading it at age 10 makes me feel like I'm doing something right. So I'm going to keep going down this path. Well, my cousins are like 13 or 14. They still read it. That's cool. That's cool. I like hearing that. Yeah. Az, what do you think you and other kids love so much about Die Every Wimpy Kid? It's funny. What do you love about Greg? He makes mistakes. Why do you like that he makes mistakes?

23:18Because then other kids make mistakes. Yeah. And then you can kind of see him make mistakes but keep going in life. Yeah. How do you come up with your subject matters? Like how do you come up with what you're going to write about next? I do try to think of a topic that I haven't explored before. And like I said, the last one was birthdays. And sometimes it's something that's very macro, like plane travel. You know, for a kid, going on their first plane trip is a big deal. And so one of my books is called The Getaway. And, you know, a third of the book takes place on a plane. So I'm just really trying to find those things that feel true.

23:54And one of the things that's happened with I Ever a Wimpy Kid was, yeah, I started off writing from the perspective of this American kid. But as I've gone through life, I've visited 43 different countries where the books are popular. And kids in China and New Zealand and Brazil, they like these books, Turkey. And I say, well, what is it about the books that is working for the kids? And I think it's because the books are a bit of a mirror to the kids' lives. And you mentioned Beverly Cleary. And I'll bet we read the same version of Ramona where her hair is just wild. Oh, my gosh, yes. But it's funny because, like, if you think about it, on the cover of every Diary of a Wimpy Kid book, Greg is frowning, right?

24:38And that's kind of an unusual choice. But I think you want to— Like on this one, too, he is. Yeah. But you're interested in him because he's not having such a good time of things. And if Greg was, like, smiling and happy or, you know, brave or something like that, it's like, that's a little bit boring for comedy. You know, I want to write funny books. So this kid who's having a little bit of a worse time than you are, I think, is the magic to the books. It's the thing that's appealing. Jeff Kinney, the book is Fight or Flight, Die of a Wimpy Kid. It's out tomorrow, wherever you get your books.

25:07My kiddo is incredibly excited to read this book, and we're super thankful that you were able to come in. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks, Hazard. Thanks, Hazard. Get back to class. Get back to school, buddy. All right. That is going to do it for us. Here's the scoop from NBC News. I'm Yasmin Basugin. We'll be back tomorrow with whatever the day may bring. And if you like what you heard, subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And you can also subscribe to our daily newsletter, The Inside Scoop. It is a deeper dive on the main stories of the day that comes out every weeknight straight to your inbox.

25:38You can sign up for The Inside Scoop as part of our paid subscription at NBCNews.com. We'll see you tomorrow.

26:16We'll see you next time.