If Trump’s popularity does not exist it must be manufactured

I see CNN is governing toward The Donald:

CNN data guru Harry Enten calls the Epstein story a "nothingburger" because Google searches have fallen off in the past week, says Trump's approval rating is "pretty gosh-darn good" right now, and commends Trump for having "some of the best political instincts of any politician I‘ve seen."

[image or embed]— Justin Baragona (@justinbaragona.bsky.social) Aug 11, 2025 at 5:53 AM

There are two intelligence-insulting hack moves here:

1)Note that in order to imply that Trump is very popular the only baseline Enten uses to compare Trump’s current approval rating is Trump’s even less popular first term.

2)Enten’s cited 45% approval rating is an outlier — aggregate approval ratings (which any serious analyst would use) suggest he’s south of 43%.

If he’s not popular with the public, though, he’s apparently very popular with the management at CNN.