Most Americans Trust The Media Over President Trump: Poll

A new survey from Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm with a strong reputation, suggests that despite President Trump's recent attacks on the media, including calling it the "enemy of the American people," a majority have greater faith in the press compared to the White House.

Only 35 percent of the pool agreed with the president's assessment of the media, which he made on Twitter last Friday and reiterated again at his speech at the Conservative Political action Conference. Fifty-three percent of respondents said it wasn't the case that the media was the enemy. (For more information on this and other political stories, subscribe to the White House Patch for daily newsletters and breaking news alerts.)

The poll surveyed 941 registered voters on Feb. 21 and 22, with a margin of error of 3.2 percent.

The results line up very closely with those found by a Quinnipiac University poll released earlier this week. It found that respondents sided with the media 52 to 37 percent when asked who they relied on to "tell you the truth about important issues."

In response to questions matching Trump against various news outlets in terms of credibility, respondents to Public Policy Polling said they had more faith in the New York Times, NBC, CNN, ABC, and CBS, by about a 10-point spread for each.

“Without Hillary Clinton as a foil Donald Trump has tried to replace her with various media outlets,” said Dean Debnam, president of Public Policy Polling. “But all the ones he’s picked fights with are seen by voters as having much more credibility than the President.”

Polls earlier in the month, however, told a different story. A Fox News poll released a week ago found Trump slightly edging out the reporters covering the White House over who was more trustworthy, 45 percent to 42 percent. Another poll from Emerson College, released on Feb. 7, which didn't directly ask respondents to compare Trump and the media, found 49 percent saying the president was a reliable source of information while only 39 percent said so about the press.

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Photo credit: Zach Gibson/Getty News Images/Getty Images