WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 15: U.S. President Donald Trump holds a model of an arch as he delivers remarks during a ballroom fundraising dinner in the East Room of the White House on October 15, 2025 in Washington, DC. Trump hosted organizations and individuals for a fundraising dinner for the new $250 million ballroom addition currently under construction at the White House. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
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In a 2013 speech at Georgetown University, President Barack Obama dismissed climate change deniers with a sharp put-down: “We don’t have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society,” he said, referencing the 70-year-old organization based on the belief that the Earth is flat, not round, and that photos of our planet taken from space–which show the Earth as a sphere–are fakes.
The Blue Marble – Earth from space, December 7, 1972. This famous photograph, known as The Blue Marble, was captured by the Apollo 17 astronauts on the same day that they left Earth on a Saturn V rocket developed by NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. The image became part of the official Earth Day flag. It is not known which of the three astronauts – Eugene Cernan, Ron Evans, and Harrison Schmitt – took the photo as all three men have always claimed it as their own. Artist NASA. (Photo by Heritage Space/Heritage Images via Getty Images)
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That’s considered a fringe conspiracy theory, dismissed by the vast majority of Americans. Now it turns out there’s something even more fringe: believing in Donald Trump’s vanity projects. CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten said Monday that just 10% of Americans are flat-Earthers, and just slightly more–12%–say the moon landing was faked. But even less accepted? Putting Trump’s name on government buildings. Just 9% of Americans say it’s right to re-name federal buildings for Donald Trump as part of his vanity makeover of the nation’s capital.
“So fewer Americans think it’s acceptable right now to put President Trump’s name on government buildings than believe two conspiracy theories, either the Earth is flat or the moon landing was fake,” Enten said. “And when you’re lower than that, you know that you’re doing something quite, quite unpopular.”
TOPSHOT – US Secretary of Treasury Scott Bessent shows a proposed $250 bill featuring President Donald Trump during a press briefing in the Brady Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, DC, on May 28, 2026. President Donald Trump could soon appear on a new $250 bill, in the Republican’s latest move to shatter US traditions by putting his personal stamp on national institutions. A proposal for the new bill, featuring a glaring Trump, was first reported Thursday by the Washington Post. (Photo by Kent NISHIMURA / AFP via Getty Images)
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‘Dude! Stop it! Focus on inflation, focus on the economy’
While the president has largely dismissed concerns about rising prices–particularly for essentials like gas and food–Americans think he’s got his priorities backward. Elected on a promise to lower inflation, Trump seems obsessed with leaving his legacy–and his face–all over the country, from a massive arch to the White House ballroom, and even a $250-dollar note with Trump’s face on it–despite a law in place since 1866 prohibiting the likeness of any living person from appearing on U.S. currency.
“I think it’s fitting. President Trump is the president during our 250th anniversary,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures, saying legislation would need to be passed to allow the Trump bill to be printed.
CNN’s Enten noted that just 29% of Americans believe the president is focused on the issues that matter most to families. “The clear majority, the supermajority, more than two in three, 68%, say ‘no, he’s not focused enough,’” Enten said. “And that is why his approval rating has been falling in the 30’s in multiple polls, because he’s focused on the wrong issues.”
Enten even called back to a quote from basketball great Michael Jordan: “Dude! Stop it! Stop it! Focus on inflation, focus on the economy, and then maybe your approval ratings will get above 40%,” he said.
And don’t laugh, Congress, you’re doing no better
Just how stunning is 10% approval? Enten pointed out that Congress, too, is less supported than believing the moon landing was faked. “You’re usually hated,” Enten said to Congress, “but usually not this hated.” Congress, Enten said, is hitting a record high disapproval of 86%, with just 10% of Americans approving of the job Congress is doing.
“Stand up and give yourself a round of applause,” Enten said to Congress. “You managed to do it” and tie an all-time high set in 2013 for Congressional disapproval.
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