President Donald Trump on Thursday morning tweeted out a screencap from Lou Dobbs’s Fox Business show purportedly showing his approval rating at a robust 55 percent.
Lou Dobbs got Trump’s approval rating wrong. Guess what Trump tweeted.
Hint: It wasn’t a correction.
There’s just one problem: That number is inaccurate.
The poll in question — a Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service national survey of 1,000 registered “likely” voters conducted between March 31 and April 4 — actually pegs Trump’s job approval rating at 43 percent, with 52 percent disapproving. Forty percent of respondents said they have a favorable impression of Trump, compared to 55 percent who have an unfavorable one.
It is true that 58 percent of respondents approve of the job Trump is doing on the economy — an impressive number, and one that isn’t particularly surprising given the strong job market and other positive economic indicators.
But beyond that, the Georgetown poll actually contains lots of worrisome findings for Trump, such as:
- 49 percent said they find Trump’s “style and comments” to be “frequently insulting, and he has the wrong approach on many issues,” compared to just 27 percent who said they think he “tells it like it is and he has the right approach on the issues I care most about.”
- 33 percent approve of Trump’s handling of health care issues, compared to 58 percent who disapprove.
- 57 percent said they think the country has “gotten off on the wrong track,” compared to 35 percent who think things are “going in the right direction.”
- Perhaps more ominously, 57 percent said they think “it’s time to give a new person a chance” in the 2020 presidential election, compared to 38 percent who said Trump “deserves re-election.”
According to RealClearPolitics’ poll average, Trump’s approval rating is currently nearly 10 points underwater, with 43.2 percent approving and 52.7 percent disapproving. Since his inauguration, Trump’s approval rating has never been higher than 46 percent — a number he last hit on February 4, 2017 — meaning he’s never come close to sniffing the 55 percent he falsely boasted about on Twitter.
On Thursday, Fox Business Network issued an on-air correction acknowledging that Dobbs’ coverage of the poll “was not entirely accurate.” Trump’s tweet, however, remains up.
The news moves fast. To stay updated, follow Aaron Rupar on Twitter, and read more of Vox’s policy and politics coverage.
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