Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
MaddowBlog-After seeing discouraging poll numbers, Trump eyes conspiratorial new lawsuit
Occasionally, when the president is especially frustrated by Americans’ attitudes, he reaches out to his lawyers.
As a rule, when Trump is confronted with polling numbers that hurt his feelings, he makes up a generous new approval rating and asks the public to play along.
— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2026-01-23T13:59:29.263Z
Occasionally, however, he gets his lawyers involved. www.ms.now/rachel-maddo...
https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/after-seeing-discouraging-poll-numbers-trump-eyes-conspiratorial-new-lawsuit
Four years later, after winning a second term, Trump filed an unprecedented lawsuit against the Des Moines Register for publishing the results of a pre-election poll that he didn’t like. Five months after that, having returned to the White House, the president responded to a series of discouraging surveys by calling pollsters “criminals” and demanding that someone (he didn’t say who) launch an “investigation” into independent polling outlets for producing data he deemed “fake.”
As 2026 gets underway, Trump is taking further steps down the same ridiculous path. After The New York Times published the results of its latest national poll, which also showed horrible results for the White House, the president published a tirade to his social media platform:
The lawsuit he referred to was filed in the fall, when Trump announced that he was seeking $15 billion from The New York Times for coverage he said damaged his reputation. (It was one of several civil suits the president has filed of late against major news organizations.).....
No one in Republican politics has ever even attempted to produce evidence of independent news organizations having secretly conspired with pollsters to generate public opinion data that hurts the president’s feelings. The very idea — even by Trump standards — is ludicrous.
In a normal and healthy political environment, American presidents struggling with sinking public support, especially in their second term, have options: They can predict a future turnaround. They can argue that they don’t consider public opinion research to be especially important, since they can’t run for a third term anyway. They might even adopt a longer view and insist that they expect history to vindicate them.
They might even consider changing course and moving away from the policies that are dragging down their popularity.
In 2026, however, Americans are not living in a normal and healthy political environment
As 2026 gets underway, Trump is taking further steps down the same ridiculous path. After The New York Times published the results of its latest national poll, which also showed horrible results for the White House, the president published a tirade to his social media platform:
The Times Siena Poll, which is always tremendously negative to me, especially just before the Election of 2024, where I won in a Landslide, will be added to my lawsuit against The Failing New York Times. Our lawyers have demanded that they keep all Records, and how they ‘computed’ these fake results. … They will be held fully responsible for all of their Radical Left lies and wrongdoing!
The lawsuit he referred to was filed in the fall, when Trump announced that he was seeking $15 billion from The New York Times for coverage he said damaged his reputation. (It was one of several civil suits the president has filed of late against major news organizations.).....
No one in Republican politics has ever even attempted to produce evidence of independent news organizations having secretly conspired with pollsters to generate public opinion data that hurts the president’s feelings. The very idea — even by Trump standards — is ludicrous.
In a normal and healthy political environment, American presidents struggling with sinking public support, especially in their second term, have options: They can predict a future turnaround. They can argue that they don’t consider public opinion research to be especially important, since they can’t run for a third term anyway. They might even adopt a longer view and insist that they expect history to vindicate them.
They might even consider changing course and moving away from the policies that are dragging down their popularity.
In 2026, however, Americans are not living in a normal and healthy political environment
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
= new reply since forum marked as read
