The tyranny of old white guys running the United States continues to march on, lies in tow. This past week on Fox, Trump favorite Lou Dobbs had to issue a retraction over having incorrectly asserted the previous night that a new Georgetown University poll had President Donald Trump’s approval rating at 55 percent. In fact, the poll found only 43 percent of the public to approve of the job he’s doing — 55 percent represents the portion that disapproved. That didn’t stop the president from proudly touting the misrepresented numbers on Twitter anyway.
As the issue raged, Dobbs offered on his show Thursday night:
‘I’d like to repair something I got wrong last night, incorrectly reporting that a Georgetown poll showed the president had an overall approval rating of 55 percent. The number in fact is 43 percent. That same poll found that President Trump has a 58 percent approval rating for the handling of the economy.’
That last comment doesn’t erase Dobbs’ error the previous night. Will Trump take the host to task for his false reporting? Will he hold him to the same standard to which he’s held other major networks when they’ve made a rare error and had to issue a retraction? Of course not. Trump is so fond of Dobbs that he’s reportedly been patched through to Cabinet meetings on speakerphone by the president.
Watch Dobbs’ retraction:
Some have noted that Trump seems to have made a recent major national policy decision directly at Dobbs’ urging. The angrily conservative Fox host asserted that Secretary of Homeland Security Kirstjen Nielsen was “flailing” and “overwhelmed” by the supposed crisis at the southern border, where growing numbers of asylum seekers are continuing to arrive. Within a week, Nielsen was out at the White House, although to be clear, she herself had reportedly previously drafted a resignation letter out of spite over being repeatedly talked down to over the immigration situation in months prior.
Trump and his longtime top adviser Stephen Miller had repeatedly gone after Nielsen for her supposed inability to properly address the “crisis,” which Trump has wanted to include breaking the law through means like turning all asylum seekers away, period, and apprehending and separating any and all undocumented immigrant families.
Trump has long appealed to the Fox-driven base in that drive, even refusing to sign spending legislation late last year because it didn’t include the billions of dollars he wanted for a southern border wall after he faced criticism from Fox hosts for initially saying he’d sign the bill. That shutdown left hundreds of thousands of government workers on the rocks for over a month, left without pay and only offered ridiculous commentary from the president like that they should work with local grocery stores to get their food now and pay for it later — as if that’s how it works anywhere. Has Trump ever bought groceries before?
Although that train of nonsense continues to rage on, for now, we can bask in the glow of one of its leaders getting shown as committed to their rhetoric to the point of completely losing touch with the seriousness of facts and reality.
Featured Image via screenshot