There are few things more fun than watching the mad king Donald Trump fall apart in public, and Thursday morning’s Truth Social meltdown was a classic. Trump was furious—absolutely furious—about his weak standing in the polls.
“Fake and Fraudulent Polling should be, virtually, a criminal offense,” he began, immediately signaling where this was going. (After all, he has sued at least one pollster for a survey he didn’t like.)
Trump has told us exactly how to read moments like this. In 2021, speaking at the Conservative Political Action Conference, he was startlingly honest about how he sees polling: “If it’s bad, I say it’s fake. If it’s good, I say that’s the most accurate poll perhaps ever.”
Right off the bat, we know two things. First, Trump understands the polls showing him and the Republican Party in trouble are real. Second, everything he’s saying in this latest rant is bullshit—and he knows it’s bullshit.
For a man whose identity is predicated on winning, dominance, and imagined adoration, this is intolerable. The numbers aren’t just bad news—they’re a direct assault on Trump’s ego because they contradict the grandiose self-myth he has spent years selling to his supporters.
Trump’s response is predictable. In a second Truth Social rant on Thursday, he insists that the country is experiencing “the Greatest Economy in the History of our Country,” the “Strongest Border in History,” and governance so flawless that “nobody has ever done a job like I have done.” And yet, somehow, polls “have me in the low 40s” on his job-approval rating.
Trump knows what’s happening, but he tells his audience a different story: that a vast conspiracy of fake polls is out to get him. “The Democrats destroyed Healthcare, I’m trying to fix it,” he wrote, “and they give me FAKE low numbers.”
This is flailing. And it’s especially revealing when placed next to what Trump said just last week.
In a Reuters interview, he acknowledged that public opinion is against him, musing that “when you win the presidency, you don’t win the midterms,” before floating his fascist solution that “we shouldn’t even have an election.”
Trump knows full well that the country is rejecting him. His proposed solution is to cancel democracy. But now, a few days later, it’s all fake, fake, fake. He’s not smart enough to pick one story and stick to it. His supporters aren’t smart enough to notice they’re being force-fed horse manure.
Trump tried to rescue himself by invoking the “REAL Polls” that are supposedly being hidden. But even Rasmussen Reports—one of his favorite right-wing pollsters, notorious for putting its thumb on the scale—shows Trump’s standing in decline. Even Rasmussen’s inflated approval rating has fallen from 56% in January 2025 to 46% as of Thursday.
Dig a little deeper and it’s worse. Among voters who feel strongly, Trump is underwater by 14 percentage points, says Rasmussen. Just 29% “strongly approve” of his job performance, while 43% strongly disapprove, as of Thursday.
And for an extra dose of irony, Rasmussen now has Democrats leading by 6 points on the generic congressional ballot, which asks voters if they’d vote for a Republican or Democratic candidate if the election were held today.
“The position for Republicans is now a net nine points worse than before the November 2024 election, when they led by three points (48% to 45%) and won just a razor-thin House majority,” the firm wrote, explaining its results.
Curiously, Trump has stopped reposting Rasmussen’s results. The last time he mentioned the firm by name was June 2025, when he called it “highly respected.”
President Donald Trump departs after a press briefing at the White House on Jan. 20.
From there, Trump’s Truth Social rant devolved into the familiar territory of grievance and projection. The media is “deranged” and “sick,” he said. Journalists suffer from “TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.” Polling is a “SCAM.”
Trump even boasted about his “Landslide” election victory in 2024. He won with 49.7% of the popular vote—less than former President Joe Biden’s 51.3% four years earlier.
“You can’t do much better than that,” Trump said about his 2024 performance, then he promised to “do everything possible” to stop the supposed menace of public opinion polling.
Trump is burning down the country and the world around it. But there’s at least one small comfort in watching these outbursts: They show that a glimpse of reality is breaking through Trump’s echo chamber. He knows the country is rejecting his regime. He knows the polls are real. And no amount of ranting can protect him from that.
