Former Obama White House Communications Director Jen Psaki told CNN’s Jake Tapper that “there might be racial undertones” in President Trump’s tweet Tuesday morning touting a Rasmussen poll which gave him higher approval ratings than “Cheatin’ Obama.”
Thank you to Rasmussen for the honest polling. Just hit 50%, which is higher than Cheatin’ Obama at the same time in his Administration.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 3, 2018
“I don’t know exactly what he’s referring to with the Cheatin,” Tapper told Psaki. “It’s an interesting thing to bring up during the Stormy Daniels saga, certainly. What’s your response?”
“Well given Trump’s history, you can also guess that he might — there might be racial undertones there,” Psaki said. “He was the founder of the birther movement.”
“Perhaps I’m going to a very evil place with that but I think history tells us that’s a possibility,” she added.
“Do you think he’s saying because he’s black he cheats?” Tapper followed up. “I don’t even understand what he meant anyway.”
“Who knows? I don’t know,” Psaki admitted. “If he cheated, if he shouldn’t have been president, if he wasn’t warranted to be president, there’s lots of possibilities.”
“I think without the context of his history, I would never go to that,” Psaki said. “But I think that’s a possibility.”
She went on to dismiss Rasmussen’s poll putting President Trump’s approval rating higher than Obama’s at the same point in his presidency.
“Beyond that factually I think one we know, anyone who’s worked in politics, that one outlier poll tells you nothing. What you’re looking at is rolling averages,” she said. “His rolling average from the first year was 38 percent, which is 10 — 11 points below any other president since 1945. The next was President Clinton.”