Trump brags he’s the most popular person in GOP history: ‘I beat our Honest Abe’
President Donald Trump claims he’s now more popular than President Abraham Lincoln.
“You know, a poll just came out that I am the most popular person in the history of the Republican Party,” he boasted in an interview with the British tabloid The Sun. “Beating Lincoln. I beat our Honest Abe.”
It’s not clear what poll Trump was referring to, but he made a similar claim on Twitter earlier this week:
Thank you to all of my great supporters, really big progress being made. Other countries wanting to fix crazy trade deals. Economy is ROARING. Supreme Court pick getting GREAT REVIEWS. New Poll says Trump, at over 90%, is the most popular Republican in history of the Party. Wow!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 10, 2018
A Gallup poll found that 90 percent of Republicans approve of Trump’s job performance. However, as the New York Times noted, President George W. Bush was even more popular among Republicans at this point in his first term, buoyed by post-9/11 unity. Gallup had Bush in the mid- to high-90s among Republicans through much of 2002, peaking at 98 percent at multiple points.
There were no polls during Lincoln’s time in office.
Trump, who is currently in the United Kingdom, also claimed to be very popular there.
“But the people of the UK, and I’ll bet if you had an honest poll, I’d be very strong,” Trump said. “They want the same thing I want. I love the U.K.”
A YouGov poll conducted for ITV found that 77 percent of Brits have an unfavorable view of Trump. And in what may be another sign of his unpopularity, an anti-Trump social media campaign caused the 2004 Green Day song “American Idiot” to surge in popularity. According to USA Today, the tune is currently at #18 on the pop charts and #1 on Amazon’s British bestseller list.
But it’s Trump claims about Lincoln that received attention on Twitter:
Man. Trump repeated his false claim about how polls show he's the most popular Republican with Republicans, ever (Bush was higher) -- then added, "Beating Lincoln. I beat our Honest Abe." They...did not do scientific popularity polls of Republicans in 1861.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) July 12, 2018
Deep in that Sun interview, Trump brags that his poll numbers with Republicans are even better than Lincoln's were. Lincoln died a decade before the telephone was invented and about eight decades before presidential approval polling began. https://t.co/9I5BOotua4
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) July 12, 2018
Trump says he won Wisconsin &Reagan lost it-LIE! He said his poll #s are better than Lincoln’s-LIE. No polls in Abe’s era-is he that dumb?
— Ed Rendell (@GovEdRendell) July 13, 2018
Everything in Trump’s Sun interview is either insane or insulting to our closest ally. Boasting about having better polls than Lincoln when telephones didn’t exist? Insane. A withering attack on the UK while failing to unequivocally condemn Putin for using Novichok here? Horrific
— Brian Klaas (@brianklaas) July 13, 2018
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.