Polling Numbers And The Midterms
BERMAN: President Trump back on the campaign trail today. What with Labor Day nearing and the real midterm election season about to ramp up, new polling from the "Washington Post" and ABC News defies the White House narrative on many fronts. Barely a third of Americans surveyed approve of the President's job performance, 60% disapprove. That's the highest it's been in the ABC News/"Washington Post" polling. Perhaps more important to the White House, nearly two-thirds back the Mueller probe. That higher than it's been as well. With that backdrop, the President will soon hit states that are normally a cakewalk for Republicans like Texas, where Senator Ted Cruz finds himself with a single-digit race. Back with me now, Joan Walsh, Ryan Lizza, Rich Lowry and joining the fun, Bakari Sellers and Michael Caputo, who we want to let you know did sign a nondisclosure agreement in his role with the 2016 campaign, which will not prevent you in any way, Michael, about talking about these poll numbers out today. 36% approval rate is not high. 60% approval, very high. We do not know if this poll is an outlier but this is the first reliable poll from a company that we think does a good job since Michael Cohen pleaded guilty, since the Paul Manafort guilty verdict. Do you think some of that is starting to show?</s>MICHAEL CAPUTO, FMR TRUMP CAMPAIGN AIDE: Well, it's also I think important to disclose that I was the head of communications for the Russian bank that paid Bill Clinton a half a million dollars just before Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration sold 40% of our uranium to a Kremlin-controlled company. So let's get that out there as well. At the same time, I've been, you know, in fear of losing the House for quite some time. I believe that this poll, however, is bunk. I believe the methodology is flawed. It's intentionally tilted to give these numbers. ABC/"Washington Post" was among the worst in 2016. And when you run with an outlier poll like this for a whole day on CNN, you're warming up for the same kind of disappointment that you got on November 8th, 2016.</s>BERMAN: Well, I will only note Bakari, we'll bring you into the conversation, that every time I've discussed the ABC News/"Washington Post" poll numbers, I always note you should look at the average of all polling.</s>CAPUTO: Right.</s>BERMAN: And there have been other polls over the last few weeks that among other things show very clearly that support for the Mueller investigation has gone up in a consistent, significant way over the last month or so. What does that tell you?</s>BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think for me, it gives some faith in the American people. It shows that the rule of law, not what Donald Trump ran on, not what Attorney General Sessions has been talking about in stump speeches and elsewhere, but the rule of law actually presides in this country, and people want to see Mueller and his investigation play out. I do think, though, that Senator McConnell needs to make sure that he passes a piece of legislation that will protect Mueller. But this is going to sound strange. I somewhat agree with Caputo in this. Donald Trump's favorability has never been high. He's never scored high ranks in any of these polls, and I think that's the danger for many Democrats and many people who want to change the direction that this country's going in. And so the only way -- he's going to get a core 30% approval, 40% approval. He's going to hover around those numbers for a long period of time. He was before the election. He has been since the election. The trick is are Americans going to come out and vote in November, something that didn't happen at the rate it should have last -- in November of 2016? That is the trick. That is the test. And the last thing, Berman, one of the things I wanted to point out if you don't mind is that, you know, this trope about the African- American voters supporting Donald Trump and Kanye West, et cetera, et cetera. He got 3% in this poll. Now, I'm not sure that it's 3%, but we're pretty sure it's low in the African-American community.</s>BERMAN: Joan, you wanted in.</s>WALSH: Yes. I mean I think that Michael, you know, once again I'm agreeing with a Republican. Michael is right. This is one poll. You've said that. We've got to take the averages. But there are a couple of interesting numbers in this poll, and one of them is that Donald Trump's the strongly disapproved number has always been in the low 40s. It's up to 53%. Again, we might see a poll tomorrow where that changes, but that -- and we do pay attention to good and bad polls. If we're paying attention, pay attention to that. And then the question that you asked Bakari. I think it's really interesting because the Trump effort to discredit Robert Mueller was working. We saw during the summer, late spring/summer, his poll numbers, his approval ratings were going down. They have been climbing, and now they're up to 63%.</s>BERMAN: Other interesting number I've seen here, Ryan -- and, Rich, jump in on this -- the impeachment number in this poll. 49% say they went Congress to pursue impeachment here. 46% say no, but, you know, more to say they wanted to not. Who like this number more, Democrats or Republicans?</s>LIZZA: That's a good question because a lot of Democrats actually don't want to run on impeachment, right? They want to run on issues. They don't want that to be front and center in a lot of these races, so I'm not sure it's politically necessarily a great thing for Democrats. But, look, this is an outlier. We all agree this is an outlier, right? Every new trend in polling starts with an outlier.</s>BERMAN: We don't know --</s>LIZZA: So we have to see -- because I would object to one thing that Michael said. I think he said that ABC and "Washington Post" deliberately skewed the poll. This poll, if you look at 538 and some of the other respective polling websites, ABC/"Washington Post" polls is one of the most respected polls in the business. I believe they called the final number in 2016 quite accurately, the national number. So I don't believe that ABC News and "The Washington Post" deliberately skewed the poll to get these results. That would -- they wouldn't do that for one poll. That would discredit their poll which has a very good reputation.</s>BERMAN: All right. As a 16-year alum of ABC News, I appreciate that. All of you stick around. We're going to talk about the President's latest confrontation with established facts and even with his own unedited statements on camera. That's next.