Newsweek
President Donald Trump took the opportunity during a tax reform roundtable in Cleveland, Ohio, on Saturday, to say he was “above Obama,” citing his approval rating from a conservative-leaning poll.
“We just had a poll, 51 or 52, which came out, you know, very nicely,” Trump said, referring to a Rasmussen Reports poll on Friday that showed 51 percent of likely US voters approve of his job performance while 49 percent disapprove.
“Then I turn on like, you know, one of the networks and I see, ‘Donald Trump, who’s not very popular…’ I’m saying, ‘What are you talking about?’” Trump continued. “In fact, you saw the poll came out that I’m above Obama.”
“I’m above Obama,” Trump reiterated, drawing claps from the audience.
Trump called Rasmussen, which consistently publishes more favorable results toward him than other polls, “one of the more accurate polls for the election” in November 2016.
“I mean, I get nothing but bad publicity. I say, how is that possible,” Trump said.
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The president used the rating to convey, “I think we’re going to do very well in the midterms.”
Saturday was just the latest of multiple times that Trump has used a Rasmussen finding to claim he is more popular than his predecessor Barack Obama.
In early April, Trump touted a Rasmussen poll that put him at a 50 percent approval rating and ignored three other polls by Gallup, Harvard and Investor’s Business Daily that indicated his approval ratings were between 38 and 44 percent.
“Thank you to Rasmussen for the honest polling. Just hit 50%, which is higher than Cheatin’ Obama at the same time in his Administration,” Trump tweeted.
Trump made a similar claim in March.
“Rasmussen and others have my approval ratings at around 50%, which is higher than Obama,” he tweeted, “and yet the political pundits love saying my approval ratings are ‘somewhat low.’ They know they are lying when they say it. Turn off the show – FAKE NEWS!”