Trump slams Fox News for ‘lousy’ polling on impeachment

Since before Donald Trump won the White House, the accuracy of national polls was already somewhat suspect, and the president has not hesitated to make note of that fact as polling methodology has seemingly gotten even more questionable during the intervening years.

Trump has taken a particular issue recently with the “lousy” polls published by Fox News, especially in regard to impeachment, and now he has even gone so far as to strongly suggest the network fire its current pollsters and hire new ones, the Washington Examiner reported.

Internal poll numbers “great”

The president’s remarks about the inaccuracy of national polling came on Sunday as he spoke with reporters outside of the White House and were prompted by a question about his confidence in being re-elected in 2020, to which he replied he was “very confident.”

“Our poll numbers are great. We’re doing very well in the polls,” Trump said. “And, by the way, not that it’s very important because you got elected and you get elected, but the impeachment polls have been very, very strong — and especially in the swing states, I think you see that. The swing states — they don’t want to hear about it. And we have polls — people don’t want to hear about impeachment.”

“The only one that wants impeachment — to talk about it — is the fake media and the Democrats, who, basically, they work for the media. The way I look at it, the Democrats work for the media,” he added.

Trump: Fox needs new pollster

A moment later, another reporter pointed out that some polls showed a slim majority of Americans wanted the president impeached and removed from office, but Trump dismissively replied, “Well, you’re reading the wrong polls. You’re reading the wrong polls.”

The reporter rattled off the names of several major media outlets, including Fox News, showing a majority in support of impeachment, but Trump would have none of it.

“You’re reading — let me just tell you, I have the real polls. I have the real polls. The CNN polls are fake. The Fox polls have always been lousy. I tell them, they ought to get themselves a new pollster,” Trump said. “But the real polls — if you look at polls that …”

The reporter interjected once more that some polls showed more than 50% support for impeachment, but Trump fired back, “You look at the polls that came out this morning. People don’t want anything to do with impeachment. It’s a phony scam. It’s a hoax.” Watch below:

Skewed sampling

It is worth noting that the most recent Fox News poll that came out Sunday morning showed that 49% of registered voters want Trump impeached and removed from office, down from 51% in October.

That poll also showed that 41% didn’t want Trump impeached at all, up from 40% last month.

However, as usual — and likely one of the things that Trump and his supporters refer to when calling the polls “fake” — a glance at the demographic breakdown of those polled shows that the sample itself was skewed in favor of the left, as 49% of respondents identified as Democrats, only 41% identified as Republicans, and 11% viewed themselves as independent, with a margin of error of about 3%.