Trump Posts "MY REAL POLL NUMBERS ARE THE HIGHEST THEY HAVE EVER BEEN" on the Same Day His Approval Hit a Record Low — Worse Than His Post-January 6th Numbers

At 10:17 a.m. on June 24, 2026, the president of the United States posted this to Truth Social:

"MY REAL POLL NUMBERS ARE THE HIGHEST THEY HAVE EVER BEEN. THANK YOU!!! President DJT"

He cited no poll. There was a reason for that.

What the polls actually said that week

The surveys released around the same time told a uniform story — and it was the opposite of his claim:

Poll	Approve	Disapprove
Reuters/Ipsos	34%	64%
Economist/YouGov (June 19–22)	39%	58%
American Research Group (June 16–20)	30% (new low)	—
Marist — handling of the economy	~33% (worst ever in Marist)	—
RealClearPolitics average (May 29–June 23)	40.4%	57.7%
Daily Mail (lone outlier)	47%	53%

Every methodologically transparent, nonpartisan poll had him deeply underwater. The single number above 40% was an outlier from the Daily Mail — and even that one had him losing, 47–53.

Worse than after January 6th

The most striking comparison: the RealClearPolitics average of 40.4% approval for late May through June 23 is lower than the 41.1% he averaged during the final ten full days of his first term — the period that included the aftermath of the January 6, 2021 Capitol riot.

In other words, on the day he announced his "highest ever" numbers, he was polling worse than he did in the immediate wake of January 6th.

Why the numbers are falling

The decline is not mysterious. Analysts tracking the trend found Trump's approval drop tracks almost perfectly with economic anxiety — specifically the tariff-driven price increases consumers began feeling in early 2026 and that accelerated through the spring. The Marist poll found just one-third of Americans approve of his handling of the economy, his lowest ever in that survey.

Nate Silver's average put his net approval at -18.9 — near his second-term low and far below where he stood at the same point in his first term (-9.0). All of this is happening roughly five months before the November midterm elections, with even reliably red states like Iowa showing Democratic openings.

Not the first time

This is at least the second documented instance of Trump declaring record-high poll numbers with nothing to back it. On November 22, 2025, he posted: "I have just gotten the highest poll numbers of my 'political career.'" That claim was also unsupported by available polling.

Why it matters

A president misremembering a poll is trivial. A president publicly asserting the exact opposite of every reliable measurement of reality — and thanking the country for a result that did not happen — is something else.

It fits a consistent method: when the data is bad, declare it fake; when convenient, invent the data outright. The same week Trump was canceling a popular bipartisan housing bill, letting FISA lapse, and watching his party fret about the midterms, he simply announced that the public loved him more than ever. The numbers say the public is, in fact, more sour on him than it was after January 6th.

The post is not evidence of popularity. It is evidence of a president who responds to a collapsing approval rating by typing, in all capital letters, that it is the highest it has ever been.