Public has had enough of Trump’s use of Twitter
WASHINGTON — Nearly two-thirds of American voters find President Donald Trump’s use of Twitter is reckless and distracting, according to a new nationwide McClatchy-Marist poll.
The poll found 65 percent of registered voters nationwide disapproved of Trump’s Twitter use, while 25 percent found it effective and informative.
And despite Trump’s frequent criticisms of news media, which he terms the enemy, the poll found most voters trust their favorite news sources over Trump, 67 percent to 29 percent.
The findings suggest Trump has a credibility problem, said Lee Miringoff of the McClatchyMarist Poll.
“Typically presidents either enjoy a honeymoon or they reach out beyond their base,” Miringoff said. “This has been an administration that despite not winning the popular vote has put the pedal to the floor and has pushed as quickly and as hard as they can with limited public support behind it. Their actions and style suggest a huge mandate which wasn’t there in the vote.”
Only 18 percent of voters said they trust Trump and his administration “a great deal” to deliver accurate and factual information to the public. Forty percent said they don’t trust the president at all, and 17 percent don’t trust him very much.
Among Democrats, 61 percent distrust Trump completely. Among independents, 45 percent don’t trust him at all.
It’s not surprising that the administration is leaving a trail of bad numbers, both in terms of Trump’s approval ratings, but also in communications, Mirigoff said.
“He’s using political capital with the public that he hasn’t really invested and developed,” he said.
The McClatchy-Marist poll asked voters whether they think Trump is too tough on the media or the media is too hard on Trump. Thirty-eight percent of voters said the media is too hard on Trump, compared to 45 percent who think Trump is too hard on the media.
“I think with him it’s just an ego thing,” said Dannette Tucker, a 37-year-old independent voter from San Jose, Calif. “He doesn’t like to be talked about poorly” by the media.
Trump’s quarrel with the media is a distraction from what he’s expected to do, which is run the country, said Cora Wright, 81, a registered Republican from Olathe, Kan., who voted Democratic. “He just does that because he doesn’t have a handle on how to run the country and it’s just a distraction. And I wish he’d stop it.”
Wright was particularly disturbed by Trump’s recent Twitter post naming CNN and several other media organizations as “enemies of the people.”
“Everyone who disagrees with him even in a small way is supposed to be just really terrible,” she said. “And it’s a concern to me because he focuses on himself like that and on his personal grudges.”