Trump Loses It on CNBC When Hosts Fact Check Insane Approval Rating Whopper: NBC Is the ‘Worst’
If you missed the roughly 30-minute interview President Donald Trump gave to CNBC’s Squawk Box, don’t worry: the essence of the entire dynamic is captured in one nearly four-minute clip of hilarity-cum-batshit craziness, linked above.
Anchor Joe Kernen—fairly described as mostly pro-Trump—seemed tasked with being the “Trump wrangler,” forced to quasi-fact-check the former president’s trademark stream of baseless claims. That included his assertion that the jobs numbers were “rigged,” which he cited in defense of firing Dr. Erika McEntarfer, and his persistent lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
In the clip, Kernen begins by correcting some of Trump’s claims, allowing the one about getting the most votes in Texas, before pushing back on the notion that the BLS revised its reports to help Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024.
“Moving on to your claim that that revision helped Biden hurt you for the 800,000. It was in August,” Kernen corrected. “There’s still plenty of time for voters to see that those weren’t real jobs. After the election in November.”
“I believe it was in, like in November something, there was a massive revision downward,” Trump incorrectly recalled (it was in August, and part of the agency’s annual benchmarking—not a post-election adjustment).
As Kernen tried to hold Trump to the facts, the former president interrupted himself: “But let’s get back to Texas because you said you were going to say something else I get the highest vote in the history of Texas a record that they say won’t be beaten unless I run again are you going to run again.” The transparent pivot to more flattering ground drew good-natured laughter from the CNBC desk.
Then it got weirder. Trump dismissed all unfavorable polling—particularly from Fox News—as fake, while claiming some polls showed him with a 70% approval rating. It’s unclear what poll he meant, but the CNBC hosts appeared unprepared for the onslaught of… well, varied information.
What followed was Trump praising CNN data correspondent Harry Enten (though he referred to him as Harry Emden) and blasting NBC polling as “probably the worst of them all.”
KERNEN: Overall poll numbers, you don’t have the best you ever had, and overall poll numbers you do. I cited one of those. I have the, I have best poll numbers I’ve ever had. Among Republicans
TRUMP: I have poll numbers where I’m 71 percent. I have the best poll numbers.
KERNEN: Those are among Republicans they you know, you’ve got
TRUMP: No, no, no. Among Republicans, 94 and 95 percent. No, I’m talking about generally. Let me put it this way. There was a gentleman on Harry Emden yesterday on CNN, and he went crazy over how well Trump was doing. Now, you know, you don’t put that on because I think CBS is a shade. Actually, CNN is a better shade than NBC. I think NBC is probably the worst of them all. But if you check CNN tomorrow, watch Harry Emden. And you’ll see about the numbers, but that’s okay. We have to defend ourselves, yeah. Thank you, protect…
KERNEN: I know, but there are other, they can cite, your haters cite polls that have you down in the 30s, Mr. President, and, you know.
TRUMP: Yeah, but they’re fake polls, Joe. I had a lot of fake polls. You also have me in the 70s. I have fake polls… Fox gives me terrible polls all the time, you know, they do nothing, but they… I’ve never had a good poll with Fox. And then I win an election and I go through the roof. Because look, I won every swing state, did I not? I won every swing state, Andrew, I won the popular vote by millions of votes, even though they tried like hell to cheat. I won by millions. The votes. I won. The counties and the all of the counties. I won 7,000 to know I won 2,750 to 502 and I won the election in a landslide. And obviously that’s only, you know, we’re only six months in, but my poll numbers are better now, much better than during the election. And now part of that, then part of that is because the Democrat Party is self-destructing.
Watch above via CNBC.
