Jessica Tarlov Drops Unfavorable Polling Data For MAGA on Fox News, Sean Duffy Cries ‘Fake Polling’

Co-host of The Five, Jessica Tarlov, brought some polling data into a conversation on President Joe Biden’s recent speech calling out what he sees as extremism in the MAGA base, eliciting an accusation of “fake polling” from a guest host who didn’t like the numbers.

The Friday exchange began with co-host Dana Perino asking Tarlov, the lone Democrat on the panel, if she thought Biden’s strategy could work. “They just have to win a certain number to keep, to hold on by their fingernails. Is that the idea?” Perino asked.

“I think we’d like more than just our fingernails. But yeah, I mean, everyone’s just trying to win whatever coalition is going to work for them. We don’t, we’re so polarized, we’re not going to have overwhelming majorities,” Tarlov responded, adding:

People are partizans generally and even independents. When you look at it, about 40% of Americans identify as independent, but nearly 100% of them lean one way or the other.

And especially with an issue like abortion on the ballot, and it will be on the ballot like in Kansas and places like Michigan now.

But everyone knows what it means if we get another conservative Supreme Court justice versus, you know, we can get a liberal one. People have their corners.

“In terms of the strategy, though, I thought was interesting, Reuters has a new poll out that says 58% of Americans think that the Make America Great Again movement is threatening our democratic foundations, and that includes 25% of Republicans,” Tarlov noted.

“So if you look at the numbers of Republicans that Joe Biden needs to pick off, 25% would be just fine. You can win like that with all of your Democrats and with independents, the left-leaning ones and a lot of the right-leaning ones who do not see the world like you do, Sean,” Tarlvo continued before being cut off.

“Fake news, fake polling,” interrupted guest host Sean Duffy.

“Is that a real,” she responded, “Sean be a serious person here to say if you don’t like something it is not ‘fake news,’ polls are real. I’ve done polling in my life and,” Tarlov shot back before Perino cut her off.

“Some of the polls actually post-Labor Day, judge, you know, we sort of started the week with thinking, wow, Biden’s got some wind at his back. And then now the polls are starting to come out post-Labor Day. And you see somebody like Herschel Walker in Georgia now moving up, Brian Kemp moving up. And you’re seeing a little bit more of this tightening, as we all suggested, post-Labor Day, you would seem” Perino added.

“Right. Right. It is tightening. There’s no question about it. But, you know, one of the things that concerns me about this, MAGA, as some of the MAGAs, not everybody’s a bad MAGA. First of all, name me one MAGA other than Donald Trump. Okay, give me the name of someone,” Judge Jeanine Pirro said.

“Doug Mastriano,” interjected Tarlov.

“No, I’m not asking you. I’m asking the president,” Pirro said before continuing.

Watch the full clip above via Fox News

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet Newsletter
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!