'Special Report' panelists Hugh Hewitt, Matt Bennett and Annie Linskey discuss President-elect Donald Trump's agenda starting to take shape.

"President-elect Donald Trump’s popularity has reached a seven-year high and the majority of Americans approve of his handling of the transition process," Forbes recently reported. "A majority of respondents to a CNN/SSRS poll released Wednesday said they believe Trump will do a good job when he returns to the White House next month (54%)," the story continued, "and approve of how he’s handling the transition so far (55%)."

These numbers are in sharp contrast to eight years ago when Donald Trump was "President-elect" the first time. Pew Research Center conducted a national survey from Nov. 30-Dec. 5, 2016 and found that, among the 1,502 adults surveyed then, only "40% approved of Trump’s cabinet choices and high-level appointments, while 41% approve of the job he has done so far in explaining his policies and plans for the future."

It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison, but the level of approval today is sharply higher than eight years ago. The big—and significant—question is: Why?

The easy and perhaps too obvious answer is that President-elect Trump 2.0 is not President Joe Biden, whereas President-elect Trump 1.0 was not President Barack Obama.

Obama left the White House—using Pew numbers again—with a job approval rating just below that of Presidents Reagan’s and Clinton’s when they exited. "58% approve of [Obama’s] job performance, while 37% disapprove," Pew told us eight years ago.

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Biden’s approval number in late November this year—turning to Gallup this time—is at 37%, and some of that sampling came before the widespread criticism of the pardon by Joe Biden of Hunter Biden. Could Biden drop further? Absolutely.

So "not being Biden" (or Vice President Kamala Harris for that matter) is helping the numbers of the once and future President Trump.

But that is not the explanation in my view. 55% may represent a new "ceiling" for the approval of all new presidents going forward in our deeply divided nation these day, but why has Trump’s numbers soared from the 40% eight years ago to today’s approval rating?

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