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President Trump Tweets Misrepresented Approval Numbers from Fox

President Trump’s overall unfavorable rating has remained steady at 55 percent since he announced his candidacy in 2015.

Published April 11, 2019

 (Gil C/Shutterstock)
Image Via Gil C/Shutterstock

On the 10 April 2019 episode of Lou Dobbs Tonight, which is aired by the Fox Business Network (FBN), host Lou Dobbs offered some approval numbers regarding President Donald Trump's performance gleaned from a recent poll. President Trump then tweeted those numbers out himself the following morning, under the heading "Great news!" and the hashtag #MAGA:

However, Dobbs' graphic had misrepresented President Trump's overall approval rating, as determined by a Georgetown Institute of Politics and Public Service “Battleground Poll.” That national bipartisan survey did measure 58 percent of voters as approving of the Trump's handling of the U.S. economy, but the 55 percent "OVERALL" figure touted as demonstrating "soaring approval" in the FBN graphic actually reflected the president's unfavorable rating among voters. The actual overall approval figure from the cited poll was only 43 percent:

Fox Business Network eventually issued a correction for the erroneous graphic, saying on-air that:

"It’s been a quite start to the day for President Trump, though he did send out a tweet this morning from the Lou Dobbs show last night on Fox Business. That tweet featured a poll that was not entirely accurate, which Fox Business would like to correct. According to a poll from Georgetown University, 58 percent of respondents approved of the president’s handling of the economy. That portion of the graphic was right. However, the graphic also showed that 55 percent of the respondents approve of the president, that number is not correct. The 55 percent number was those who have an unfavorable impression of President Trump.”

David Mikkelson founded the site now known as snopes.com back in 1994.