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Trump touts bogus 'Fox & Friends' report claiming he's just as popular as Obama was
December 29, 2017 8:52AM ET
President Donald Trump (Photo: Screen capture)
President Donald Trump on Friday insisted that he's just as popular now as former President Barack Obama was at this point in 2009 -- despite the fact that multiple polls say otherwise.
The President based his boast on a "Fox & Friends" report that only cited one poll to back up its claim -- a poll that was released on Thursday by the right-leaning Rasmussen Reports.
"While the Fake News loves to talk about my so-called low approval rating, @foxandfriends just showed that my rating on Dec. 28, 2017, was approximately the same as President Obama on Dec. 28, 2009, which was 47%," Trump wrote. "And this despite massive negative Trump coverage & Russia hoax!"
In reality, Rasmussen is the only major pollster to have Trump's approval rating as high as 46 percent.
An analysis of polling averages by FiveThirtyEight shows that Trump currently has an average approval rating of just 37.7 percent, which makes him by far the least popular presisdent at the end of his first year by far. For comparison, Obama had an average approval rating of 49.6 percent at this point in his president, George W. Bush had an approval rating of 82.9 percent, Bill Clinton had an approval rating of 56.2 percent, and Ronald Reagan had an approval rating of 49.2 percent.
Similarly, a comparison of Trump's average approval rating with Obama's average approval rating on Real Clear Politics shows that Obama's approval rating at this point in 2009 was 49.8 percent, whereas Trump's average approval rating now is 39.3 percent.
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