Trump Calls Polls 'Fake' and Says His Approval Is Closer to 60%

President Donald Trump dismissed polls showing his approval slipping ahead of the November midterm elections, telling The Washington Examiner's Byron York in an interview published Saturday that the figures are "fake" and that his support is closer to 60 percent. Asked about a RealClearPolitics average showing 38.8 percent approval and 60.4 percent disapproval, Trump said, "It's fake," and added, "I'm not at 38."

The reported figures he rejected include a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted October 16 to 19 that found 34 percent approval and 65 percent disapproval, and a Pew Research Center survey from September 28 to October 4 that found 30 percent approval. A New York Times/Siena College poll released this week put his approval at 34 percent, which the newspaper said was the lowest for a president approaching midterms since Harry Truman's 33 percent in 1946.

Trump pointed instead to strong support among Republicans and MAGA voters. He cited an analysis by CNN data analyst Harry Enten showing 98 percent approval among MAGA Republicans in September. Enten also reported that Trump's net approval on inflation fell from +8 in 2024 to -45 ahead of the midterms. The interview comes amid a separate controversy involving Wedgewood Research, a polling firm that acknowledged producing fabricated numbers as a social experiment. The New York Times said it did not use the disputed polls in calculating Trump's job approval average.

Trump did not cite a national poll showing approval near 60 percent. The Independent's report relies on the Washington Examiner interview as published, and the exact approval figures and their methodologies are those reported in that coverage.