Fox News may be President Donald Trump's favorite network, but he's not a fan of its polling operation.
The Daily Beast reported that while he was in the middle of his Thursday interview with Fox News' Martha MacCallum, the Fox host interrupted his claims of bringing back American manufacturing jobs to point out that a majority of Americans disapprove of his leadership on the economy. She cited a Fox News poll conducted earlier this month showing that 52 percent of respondents said Trump had made the economy worse so far in his second term.
"You’ve got unemployment at the highest rate in four years. Groceries made a big jump in the last term," MacCallum said. "You’re looking forward with these plans that you just talked about. When will people feel that?"
"Well, when the factories start opening. I mean, right now we’re building them," Trump said defensively. He then pivoted to attacking the network's pollster.
“Fox polling, I have to tell you, I’ve told you before, the worst polling I’ve ever had, it’s always—I mean, during the election, they had me winning by a little bit, not by a massive amount,” Trump said. “And Fox polling, I’ve told [Fox Corporation owner] Rupert Murdoch, go get yourself a new pollster, because he stinks—and this is for years now.”
Trump's remarks come on the heels of the Federal Reserve's decision to reduce the interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point — something the nation's central bank typically does during an economic downturn. Fed chair Jerome Powell signaled that stagflation (a term used to define periods of high unemployment, high inflation and stagnant GDP growth) could be looming and that the rate cut was done out of "risk management."
Last week, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick pushed back on poor manufacturing job growth under Trump's second term, insisting that Trump's economy wouldn't begin until late 2025 or early 2026. This is despite Lutnick proclaiming that Trump's economy was officially underway earlier this year after stock market indexes posted new record highs.
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