Trump busted for telling aides to lie about his lousy poll numbers: New York Times

President Donald Trump is notorious for his well-documented pattern of constantly lying, a habit he was caught attempting to pass on to his aides.

In a story on his 2020 re-election campaign, The New York Timesreported how the president reacted to devasting internal polls.

"After being briefed on a devastating 17-state poll conducted by his campaign pollster, Tony Fabrizio, Mr. Trump told aides to deny that his internal polling showed him trailing Mr. Biden in many of the states he needs to win, even though he is also trailing in public polls from key states like Texas, Michigan and Pennsylvania," the newspaper reported.

"And when top-line details of the polling leaked, including numbers showing the president lagging in a cluster of critical Rust Belt states, Mr. Trump instructed aides to say publicly that other data showed him doing well," The Times noted.

Poll numbers have been a fixation for Trump, the first president to never average above 50 percent approval.

"In a recent overarching state-of-the-race briefing in Florida with Brad Parscale, his campaign manager, Mr. Trump was consistently distracted and wanted to discuss other things, according to people familiar with the meeting. When it came to the campaign, his main focus was on his own approval numbers," The Times reported.