Whether he's falsely predicting that COVID-19 infections will soon plummet to zero or musing about treating the disease by injecting disinfectants, President Donald Trump has put out a great deal of misinformation about the pandemic.
And now a new poll from the Knight Foundation reveals that 47 percent of Americans have identified the Trump administration as "the main source" of COVID-19 misinformation, while an additional seven percent identified the White House as the second-largest source of bad pandemic information.
In contrast, just 33 percent said the mainstream national news was the main source for misinformation, while 15 percent chose social media websites as the main source.
Social media, however, was by far the top selection for the second-biggest source of misinformation, as 53 percent of Americans ranked it behind their first choice.
The poll also found Democrats more likely to pin Trump as the primary culprit of misinformation than Republicans.
"Partisans have clear ideas of what entities are most responsible for misinformation," the Night Foundation writes. "For Democrats, it is the Trump administration; for Republicans, it is the mainstream national news media. But Democrats are more likely to name the Trump administration than Republicans are to name the mainstream media. Independents are about equally likely to name the Trump administration and the mainstream news media."
