Lou Dobbs Eats Crow, Issues Correction for Inaccurate Claim About Trump’s ‘Soaring’ Approval
After Fox News and Fox Business Network were forced to issue on-air corrections about his claim that Trump’s job approval rating was 55 percent.
Steven Ferdman/Getty
After both Fox Business Network and Fox News were forced to issue on-air corrections Thursday morning after President Trump tweeted out a wildly inaccurate on-air graphic from Lou Dobbs Tonight showing his job approval rating is 55 percent, Fox Business host Lou Dobbs briefly addressed the matter Thursday evening.
During his program Wednesday night, Dobbs boasted about the president’s “soaring” and “robust” approval rating while airing a graphic from a Georgetown University poll. While Dobbs and the graphic were correct that the survey showed 58 percent of voters approved of the president’s handling of the economy, the poll actually found Trump’s job approval rating was 43 percent.
Georgetown University Politics director Mo Elleithee, a Fox News contributor, noted after Trump’s tweet that the 55-percent number Dobbs bragged about was actually the president’s unfavorability rating.
In an on-air segment Thursday morning, Fox Business Network reporter Blake Burman explained that the president’s tweet “featured a poll that was not entirely accurate” and the job approval number Dobbs touted on air “was those who have an unfavorable impression of President Trump.”
Fox News White House correspondent Kevin Corke also delivered an on-air correction, claiming there was a “typo in that graphic” while ignoring Dobbs’ remarks about the poll.
The pro-Trump host, who the president regularly patches into Oval Office meetings, appeared a bit chastened when he made his correction. Coming from break, Dobbs informed his audience he had some new poll numbers about the “radical Dimms” that he wanted to share with them, but first he “would like to repair something’ he got wrong the night before.
The Fox Business host quickly explained he had incorrectly reported “a Georgetown poll showed president had an overall approval rating of 55 percent—the number, in fact, is 43 percent.”
Dobbs, meanwhile, made sure to note that he did accurately reflect Trump’s approval rating on the economy in the poll.
As of this publication, the president’s tweet is still live, having racked up over 25,000 retweets and 100,000 likes.