Exclusive: Astonishing poll about Trump and media
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A stark poll by Survey Monkey finds that 89% of Republicans view President Trump as more trustworthy than CNN, and 91% of Democrats think the opposite. Among all adults, trust for CNN is 7 points ahead of Trump. Among independents, CNN wins by 15 points.
Why it matters, from SurveyMonkey's Jon Cohen: "The fight ... between the White House and major media outlets has made the question of truthfulness just as partisan-tinged as health care or other policies."
Asked whether they trust Trump or the WashPost/NYT more, the newspapers won by 9 points among all adults. Asked about Trump vs. ABC/CBS/NBC, the networks were judged more trustworthy by an 11-point margin. Republicans had a similar disproportionate trust in Trump.
The online poll of 4,965 adults, taken June 29 to July 3 (error estimate: +/- 2.5 points), found:
- 33% of Republicans say they get their news only from Fox.
- 64% of all adults disapprove of Trump's use of Twitter (89% Dems, 38% Republicans).
- Describing his tweets (all adults): undignified 47% ... mean 34% ... entertaining 26% ... presidential 7%.
Jon Cohen, Survey Monkey's SVP, survey research, emails me his takeaways:
- "A red flag for Democrats continues to be a perception that Trump is isolating himself from the GOP base with his tweets. Not only do most Republicans approve of his use of Twitter, but asked to describe those tweets, the No. 1 mention among the GOP is 'truthful,' with 'entertaining' in second place."
- "[T]he biggest danger for Republicans is that they grow content with firing up the base: Fully three-quarters of pure independents (those that don't lean one way or the other) disapprove of Trump's tweeting, and their top three descriptors for it are 'undignified,' 'mean,' and 'dishonest.'"
