While discussing President Donald Trump’s recent polling numbers, a CNN analyst made a startling exclamation.
When the topic of the president’s approval rating on the economy came up, CNN’s David Chalian said Trump’s 56% approval was “the highest number we’ve ever seen at CNN polling.” Chalian was making the claim in reference to only Trump, saying a few seconds later, “It’s the high watermark in the entirety of the Trump presidency in CNN polling.”
Indeed, it is the highest approval rating on the economy that Trump has received during his presidency from CNN, but it is not the highest approval rating CNN has ever seen.
Former President Barack Obama, for example, beat that number twice during his eight years as president — in the first months of his presidency in 2009 and as he was leaving office in 2017. Both of these numbers should be looked at with a grain of salt. He entered office with high hopes. Remember, he had won the Nobel Peace Prize for a speech he gave before he was inaugurated. His approval rating on the economy jumped eight points from before the 2016 election to just before Trump was inaugurated, so one can also assume that might have had more to do with apathy over Trump than anything Obama had actually accomplished. – READ MORE