Trump Declares Brutal CNN Poll ‘FAKE’, Says He’s Retained Another Pollster to Analyze It

President Donald Trump continued to rail against a new CNN poll showing him trailing Joe Biden, sharing a statement from “highly respected pollster” McLaughlin & Associates.
The new poll from CNN shows Biden 14 points ahead of Trump — 55 to 41 — and puts the president’s approval rating at 38 percent.
This morning Trump called CNN polls “as Fake as their Reporting”:
CNN Polls are as Fake as their Reporting. Same numbers, and worse, against Crooked Hillary. The Dems would destroy America!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 8, 2020
But hours later, the president tweeted again about the “FAKE” poll, this time sharing a statement from McLaughlin & Associates and saying, “I have retained highly respected pollster, McLaughlin & Associates, to analyze todays CNN Poll (and others), which I felt were FAKE based on the incredible enthusiasm we are receiving.”
I have retained highly respected pollster, McLaughlin & Associates, to analyze todays CNN Poll (and others), which I felt were FAKE based on the incredible enthusiasm we are receiving. Read analysis for yourself. This is the same thing they and others did when we defeated…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 8, 2020
…Crooked Hillary Clinton in 2016. They are called SUPPRESSION POLLS, and are put out to dampen enthusiasm. Despite 3 ½ years of phony Witch Hunts, we are winning, and will close it out on November 3rd! pic.twitter.com/4IhuLUZjsv
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 8, 2020
The statement the president shared says in part, “The latest skewed media polls must be intentional. It’s clear that NBC, ABC and CNN who have Democrat operatives like Chuck Todd, George Stephanopoulos and other Democrats in their news operations are consistently under-polling Reppublicans and therefore, reporting biased polls… Ths bias seems to be an international strategy to suppress your vote.”
The president’s latest tweet about polling got a fair amount of social media attention, with reporters calling out his use of McLaughlin in particular:
Perhaps the worst pollster of 2018 pic.twitter.com/Sl3jUkt1Ki
— Nate Cohn (@Nate_Cohn) June 8, 2020
Some pre-Trump headlines about the pollster https://t.co/1HypoyAiC3 pic.twitter.com/AEPUPVUjV8
— Benjy Sarlin (@BenjySarlin) June 8, 2020
How McLaughlin rates, per @FiveThirtyEight https://t.co/W2cas7r2Ax pic.twitter.com/oXGSMCd8rw
— Allan Smith (@akarl_smith) June 8, 2020
Same pollster that Minority Leader Cantor uses. https://t.co/cj6C1DGx78
— J. Miles Coleman (@JMilesColeman) June 8, 2020