President Donald Trump told former fixer Michael Cohen that he would win a hypothetical election today "by 25 points," while claiming the U.S. economy "has never been stronger," during their first public conversation in roughly eight years.
Trump Claims Polls Understate His Support
"I think that we’re doing really well in the polls, the real polls," Trump told Cohen during a WABC interview on Thursday. "If I were running today, I think I’d win by 25 points. I think we’d win by a lot. The economy has never been stronger. We’re doing numbers that nobody’s ever seen before."
Fresh polling paints a different picture. A Reuters/Ipsos survey released on Monday put Trump’s approval at 33%, the lowest of his presidency, with 64% disapproving. The result extends an earlier slide in Trump’s approval as the Iran war and cost-of-living concerns weighed on voters.
Official data show a mixed backdrop. The Bureau of Economic Analysis said real GDP grew at a 1.5% annualized rate in the second quarter, slowing from 2.1% in the first. Markets had already digested the weaker second-quarter growth alongside persistent inflation. July consumer prices rose 3.4% from a year earlier, while employers cut 23,000 payroll jobs and unemployment held at 4.1%.
