After attacking our NATO allies, and doing some embarrassing meddling in British politics, Donald Trump is headed to Helsinki for a face-to-face meeting with Russia's president Vladimir Putin. The meeting also comes on the heels of the indictment of 12 Russians for hacking into U.S. computers and trying to affect the 2016 presidential election.
The meeting should have been cancelled after those indictments became public knowledge, but Trump wouldn't do that. He should also be tough with Russia, and demand they stop trying to interfere in U.S. elections (which is nothing less than an attack on our democracy). He probably won't do that either. Trump seems to think Putin is our friend, and is still calling the investigation into Russia's actions a "witch hunt".
He'd better be careful though. The public (by a 13 point margin) is already unhappy about how Trump has handled Russia. If he is seen to be soft on Putin after berating our allies, the public is not going to like that. By a 47 point margin, Americans consider Russia to be an enemy -- not a friend. They want a president to stand up to Putin -- not give in to him (or accept his lies).
These two charts use information contained in a new Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between July 8th and 10th of a national sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,246 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 3 points, and for registered voters is 2.9 points.