Transcript: Trump TV Ads Backfire as Poll Shows He’s Shockingly Toxic: The following is a lightly edited transcript of the October 1 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
This week brings two related developments. Donald Trump just hit another record low in the polls, and Donald Trump is using taxpayer money to fund propaganda ads in the midterms that are all about himself. He doesn’t seem to see the disconnect with that. The ad scheme is corrupt and probably illegal, and an official just leaked something damning: the corruption of the scheme is in part the point, because it draws media attention to the ads, which amplifies them. We think that says a lot about how Trumpian and autocratic propaganda really work.
So we’re talking to David Corn, who has a good piece for The New Republic exploring how Trumpian disinformation really functions. He’s author of How Russia Won, a book about Trump, Russia, and America. David, good to have you on.
David Corn: Great to be on The Blast.
Sargent: Let’s start with the polling. Quinnipiac has a new survey finding that Trump’s approval is down at 34 percent, and he’s down to 31 percent on the economy, which is an all-time low for both terms in Quinnipiac polling. Democrats are leading in the generic House ballot matchup by 51 to 39. That’s 12 points.
David, I don’t think it’s that high, but we’re getting there. Nate Silver’s average has it at nearly 10 points now, the generic ballot average. All indications are, one, Trump continues to drop, and two, the Dem lead continues to expand. Is that too optimistic? Your thoughts?
Corn: Well, I mean, he’s at lower numbers than Jimmy Carter, right? And they keep dropping. Yeah, it’s showing us kind of where his floor or basement is. And I always thought it was around 30 points. One or two outlying polls have him down as low as 29, but the average is still low-to-mid thirties.
So I think there’s still a little bit further for him… https://newrepublic.com/article/216061/transcript-trump-tv-ads-backfire-poll-shows-he-shockingly-toxic