Donald Trump Makes Up Poll Touting African-American Support
When the truth is inconvenient, make up your own facts. That seems to be President Donald Trump’s motto. The president posted a tweet Sunday morning referring to a poll that does not exist, as noticed by many journalists on Twitter.
New Fox Poll shows a “40% Approval Rating by African Americans for President Trump, a record for Republicans.” Thank you, a great honor!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 4, 2018
Of course, Trump is a president who is well-known for his lies and falsehoods. The Washington Post recently released fact-checking data that revealed he made nearly 6,500 false or misleading claims during his 649 days in office. However, the Post noted that his rate has increased recently; in the seven weeks leading up to the midterm elections, he has averaged an impressive 30 falsehoods per day.
Washington Post reporter Aaron Blake tweeted that the source of the fake poll touted by Trump came from Fox columnist citing a Rasmussen poll in a recent column. A Fox News spokesperson also confirmed to Talking Points Memo that Trump was referring to Rasmussen.
It’s actually a Rasmussen poll that a Fox columnist uncritically passed along. https://t.co/f73unNvQ6y https://t.co/0kG0SXu6uT
— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) November 4, 2018
This may explain why Trump erroneously attributed the poll to Fox, but even so, Rasmussen has been characterized as an outlier, and other polling firms have measured Trump’s African-American support as much lower. YouGov/Economist most recently reported Trump’s approval rating among black Americans at 17 percent. Reuters clocked it at 16.7 percent.
Perhaps Daniel Dale, Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star summed up Trump’s strategy of untruth best during an appearance on CNN’s Reliable Sources Sunday, “These are not simply the usual exaggerations of a crowd size and so on. [Trump] is making stuff up in the last couple weeks in a way that I don’t think we’ve seen even from a serial liar, the president, before.”
"These are not simply the usual exaggerations of a crowd size and so on. He's making stuff up in the last couple weeks in a way that I don't think we've seen from a serial liar, the President, before": @ddale8 says Trump's rhetoric before the midterms includes some "whoppers" pic.twitter.com/tKjKFmX9ve
— Reliable Sources (@ReliableSources) November 4, 2018