CNN Data Guru Shoots Down Trump’s Favorite Rally Stunt
The data analyst urged viewers to get “the full story.”
CNN’s chief data analyst has spoken out about those clips of him that President Donald Trump loves to play at campaign rallies.
Harry Enten, 38, said the reports he made earlier this year about how MAGA Republicans feel about Trump, 80, don’t quite capture “the full story.”
Trump has devoted a segment of his campaign rallies to playing clips of Enten reporting on surveys showing that the president has sky-high approval ratings among Republicans who identify as MAGA.
But Enten said on Friday that there’s more to the story than the cherry-picked clips that Trump shows off.
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“If you had told me a decade ago that I would a) be on CNN, and b) the president of the United States would be playing clips of mine at his rallies… I don’t think I would have bought it for a minute. I’d put the chance at 1 in a million… and that may have been high,” he told CNN media correspondent Brian Stelter.
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“Here’s what I’ll say: I think you can watch my segments, short and long. The MAGA GOP is just a small part of them,” he continued. “They help tell a story, but it’s not the full story.”
Donald Trump plays clips of Harry Enten during his rallies, while conveniently ignoring all the negative segments about the president or the GOP.
Jonathan Ernst/Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
Before closing out a rally in Texas on Tuesday, for example, Trump bragged about surveys that he said were “really sort of amazing because CNN did them.”
“They have to be credible when they’re positive,” he said of the network he despises.
The clips show Enten saying that Trump got 99 percent of the MAGA GOP vote in 2024 and scored a 99-percent approval rating with the same group. In another clip, the data analyst said Trump was the president most admired by Republicans, beating out Ronald Reagan and Abraham Lincoln.
“Such an honor,” Trump said. “Thank you. Thank you, CNN.”
But Enten has also reported on damning surveys showing Trump’s “laughably bad” approval rating heading into the midterms. Only 34 percent of Americans are happy with Trump’s job as president, according to CNN’s aggregate.
Enten also warned that several other data points show how “the GOP is in major trouble,” including non-MAGA GOP support for James Talarico, the Democratic Senate candidate in Texas, and independent voters’ support for Democratic congressional candidates.
“President Trump is quite popular with MAGA,” Enten said in May. “They very much love the president. But of course, they are just a certain portion of the electorate. When you expand it out, the reality check is this: Donald Trump has never been more unpopular in his second term in office.”
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