President Donald Trump started off his Monday morning tweeting by blasting “negative polls” as “fake news,” saying the public wants “border security and extreme vetting.”
"Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting," he tweeted.
Any negative polls are fake news, just like the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election. Sorry, people want border security and extreme vetting.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017
He then added that "everyone knows" that he calls his own shots, "largely based on an accumulation of data."
"I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies!" he tweeted.
I call my own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data, and everyone knows it. Some FAKE NEWS media, in order to marginalize, lies!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017
Trump was referring to two polls released over the past three days, which found that a majority of Americans opposed his executive order. On Friday, a CBS poll alleged that more than half of Americans disapproved of President Trump’s executive order temporarily banning visitors from seven Muslim-majority countries, sharply divided along party lines on the issue. Overall, 51% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s immigration executive order and temporary refugee ban, and 45 percent approve, according to the poll. This was followed by a second poll on Sunday, this time from CNN/ORC, which likewise found that most Americans oppose the executive order Trump signed, putting travel restrictions put in place.
These, however, followed a prior poll from Reuters which found the opposite, namely that a plurality of Americans, or 49%, "strongly" or "somewhat" agreed with Trump's order, while 41% disagreed. Similarly, a Rasmussen poll earlier in the week likewise found in its own survey that a majority approved of Trump's order.
As we have shown in the past, numerous political polls in the recent past have relied on "oversampling" of democratic responses to goalseek a specific outcome, and is likely what Trump is referencing when he says that he "calls his own shots, largely based on an accumulation of data."