Trump appears to alter his tune on ‘fake news’ CNN and shares clip of community touting his favorability scores
Donald Trump has shared a clip from CNN—a network he has repeatedly derided for disseminating so-called “fake news”—showing a report touting his favorability ratings.
Speaking to reporters in the Oval Office last week, the president said that both CNN and MSNBC may be “turned off,” calling their journalism “dishonest” and stating their ratings are doing “horribly.”
On Wednesday morning, Trump took to Truth Social to share a video from the very outlet he attempted to discredit in the midst of the fallout over the Signal text leak.
The president shared a four-second segment that aired the previous evening. It showed CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten citing NBC and Marist Poll data that showed Americans believe the country is on the right track under the Trump administration.
“The bottom line is, the percentage of Americans who say we’re on the right track is through the roof,” Trump wrote, quoting Enten from the clip.
“According to Marist, 45 percent say that we’re on the right track. That’s the second-highest that Marist has measured since 2009. How about NBC News? Forty-four percent, that’s the highest since 2004,” Enten said moments before in the full clip.
Earlier in Tuesday’s broadcast, the former FiveThirtyEight analyst noted that while Trump’s net favorability rating continues to be negative, it is higher than at any point in his first or second administration.
“I think sometimes it’s important to do a little bit of a reality check and take a little different spin at the numbers,” he said.
Enten also stated Trump’s net economic approval has fallen to a historic low, claiming “the economy [could] be Trump’s Waterloo—to quote Abba.” The journalist stated in his analysis that it had fallen from plus six points in January to minus 14 points in March this year.
Since returning to the White House, Trump has continued to attack traditional media outlets and the journalists they employ.
In comments made to the Department of Justice earlier this month, Trump baselessly claimed that the media was producing stories designed to damage his reputation—calling it “totally illegal.”
“The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and MSDNC, and the fake news, CNN and ABC, CBS and NBC, they’ll write whatever they say,” Trump said. “And what do you do to get rid of it? You convict Trump… It’s totally illegal what they do.”
Trump claimed that CNN and MSNBC write “97.6 percent” negative stories about him and act as a mouthpiece for the Democrats.
After lambasting all but the conservative media on the 2024 campaign trail, the president took away long-held office space at the Pentagon from CNN and The Post, instead giving it to right-leaning organizations.
The president has also taken power away from the White House Correspondents’ Association and changed longstanding rules about who gets to ask questions during daily briefings.
The same day Trump spoke at the DOJ, he issued an executive order that effectively shut down operations at the state media network Voice of America.
Source: independent.co.uk
