When Sarah Huckabee Sanders was Donald Trump’s White House press secretary, she earned a reputation for brazen dishonesty. A Washington Post analysis in 2019, for example, described her as “a prolific liar.” A related Post piece from around the same time labeled Sanders “the disdainful Queen of Gaslighting.”
There are plenty of other reports that have rounded up examples of Sanders peddling obvious falsehoods, and the lists aren’t altogether short.
But Sanders was nevertheless elected to serve as governor of Arkansas, which means the Republican no longer has to say outrageously false things on the president’s behalf, since she has an entire state government she has to run.
Old habits, however, die hard. On Thursday night, for example, Sanders appeared on Fox News and boasted that Trump’s approval rating is “soaring.”
There’s been a surprising amount of similar talk in GOP circles lately. Republican Rep. Mike Collins of Georgia, for example, declared last week the president’s approval rating “increased after his tariff policy was introduced.” That came on the heels of Alina Habba, an acting Trump-appointed U.S. attorney, boasting on Fox that the president’s public support is “skyrocketing,” with an approval rating that’s reached “an all-time high of anyone.”
This is not a matter of opinion. There’s nothing subjective about the underlying question. There’s plenty of publicly available data about Trump’s support, and it offers an unambiguous assessment of his standing. Consider some of the most recent polling:
- Gallup: 44% approve, 53% disapprove
- CNBC Hart/POS: 44% approve, 51% disapprove
- Quinnipiac University: 41% approve, 53% disapprove
- CBS News/YouGov: 47% approve, 53% disapprove
- Economist/YouGov: 45% approve, 53% disapprove
- Reuters/Ipsos: 43% approve, 53% disapprove
(Click on any of the above links for more information on the polls’ methodology and margins of error.)
Among high-quality pollsters, the last time a national survey showed the president’s approval rating above 50%, it was conducted in February.
In terms of the overall averages across all polls, a RealClearPolitics tally puts Trump’s support at 46.5%, down from about 48% at this point last month, while Nate Silver’s model shows the president’s approval rating at 45.5%, which is down two points from a month ago. The president, who has a habit of making up generous approval ratings for himself out of whole cloth, recently told NBC News that recent polls showed his approval rating “in the high 70s,” which continues to be quite bonkers. But that Trump’s backers are playing along makes matters worse. If Republicans want to say that his weakening support is temporary, that’s fine. If they’re inclined to argue that the only polls that matter are election results, no problem. If they want to argue that the right decisions are not always popular, that’d be perfectly reasonable. But to manufacture an alternate reality in which Trump’s support is “soaring” is ridiculous.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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