Fox Hid Its Own Brutal Trump Poll Numbers While Hosts Lavished Praise On Him
After Fox News’ pollsters found that President Donald Trump’s job approval had plummeted to some of his worst numbers ever, the network’s on-air talent buried the result while puffing up the president as the “ultimate dealmaker” who is doing “incredible things” and promising that “the whole world” will soon “come kiss the ring of the king.”
Fox News Digital wrote up the network’s latest poll on Wednesday evening, finding Trump’s job approval fell to his lowest level of support at least since early in his first term: “Among all voters, 41 percent approve of the job Trump is doing, while 58 percent disapprove. Only once have his ratings been lower and that was during his first term, 38-57 percent in October 2017.”
The poll also shows Trump hitting a record low on his handling of the economy at 38-61 percent, and underwater on foreign policy by 43-55 percent tariffs by 35-63 percent, health care by 34-64 percent, and even immigration by 46-53 percent.
Trump has previously railed against Fox’s pollsters, calling for them to be fired or even criminally investigated because their negative results purportedly constitute “ELECTION FRAUD.” But if he’s been watching his favorite network in the hours since the latest poll’s release, he has not seen the devastating 41 percent job approval number aired a single time, according to a Media Matters review through noon ET yesterday.
Fox personalities have avoided mentioning those figures while instead discussing other results from the poll (which were also largely negative), such as its findings on respondents’ views of Trump’s “peace deals,” the broader economic situation and who is to blame for it, and the government shutdown.
The closest anyone came to mentioning Trump’s record-low job approval was during the 5 a.m. hour Thursday, when Fox Business’ Cheryl Casone referenced Trump’s “career-high disapproval numbers among men, white voters, and those without college degrees” without discussing any figures. Fox & Friends host Ainsley Earhard also pointed out that Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-NY) “unfavorable number is 54; it was 35 in June of 2017” — but did not note that Trump’s disapproval figure in the same poll was four points higher.
While concealing from viewers their own network’s new evidence of Trump’s extreme unpopularity, Fox’s hosts are still showering him with praise.
Special Report anchor Bret Baier, fresh off attending the lavish White House banquet and afterparty in honor of murderous Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, opened Wednesday’s broadcast by declaring that “the president, known as the ultimate dealmaker, was talking business today with one of the richest nations on the planet.”
Fox prime-time host Jesse Watters launched his own program that night with a lengthy monologue praising the “golden age” Trump is ushering in, which began: “The trade deficit’s shrinking, the GDP’s growing, and you hear that giant sucking sound? We flipped it. All those jobs are being sucked back into America.”
He went on to say: “Soon, the whole world’s going to be boarding 787s to come kiss the ring of the king — just kidding, no kings — and throw back champagne in the big beautiful ballroom. Because last night's soiree in the teeny-weeny East Room was a little too cramped for these ballers. The dinner was so hot the prince left his tuxedo at the embassy.”
Trump adviser and Fox host Sean Hannity’s show also featured a monologue celebrating the president.
“It's important to stay focused, not lose sight of the incredible things that are happening at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” he said, adding: “America is now the envy of the world. We have reasserted our economic role as the world leader. Also, on foreign affairs — there is no country that is bringing more peace and stability to the world than the U.S..”
Hannity further claimed that Trump “is bringing people together from all walks of life and he's doing it with unprecedented transparency” and touted his “history in the making” peace deals while adding that “Trump's biggest wins are here at home.”
Hannity concluded: “We're witnessing a president like no other and something you rarely see in Washington, promises made and kept.”
Both Watters and Hannity aired a clip from CNN poll guru Harry Enten from earlier that day, in which he said Trump’s foreign policy job approval rating is “up like a rocket” from his first term — but still underwater.
For Watters, this showed that “America, just like McDonald’s, we’re loving it,” while Hannity crowed that “fake news CNN” had been “forced to admit Donald Trump's foreign policy rating is up like a rocket.”
Meanwhile, CNN’s “poll of polls” aggregate for Trump’s job approval was at 39-58%, even worse than the latest Fox result that the hosts hid from their viewers.
Fox's coverage makes sense only when you recognize that the network’s role is not to tell viewers about the state of the world and the president's approval, but to boost its propagandists’ wealth and power by desperately trying to improve those numbers.
Reprinted with permission from Media Matters
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