Fox News host stands by network’s poll after Lara Trump claims Biden’s 54% approval number is not ‘legitimate’

Fox News hosts have defended the results of a poll the network commissioned that shows a majority of Americans surveyed approve of Joe Biden’s performance as president so far. Former President Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, pushed back on the poll on Fox News’ on air, calling the approval rating not “legitimate”.

The poll showed Mr Biden with a 54 per cent approval rating. “Well, Fox News stands by the poll,” Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy said to Ms Trump.

“I truly don’t believe that. I don’t think that is a legitimate number,” Ms Trump said, adding that she feels Mr Biden gets “totally coddled guys by the mainstream media, every time you see him, truly, asked a question by so many of these outlets, they’re these softball questions about ice cream and it really, they don’t push him on anything, they don’t follow up with him in the way we know they would with Donald Trump,” Ms Trump said when she heard the results of the Fox poll.

She went to state that Biden receives “ glowing reviews all around from the mainstream media” and that those who answered the poll were “not getting the full picture” about the current president.

“I cannot believe that anybody would have his approval rating anywhere over about negative five per cent at this point,” Ms Trump said about Mr Biden, who has led a relatively successful national Covid-19 vaccination roll out, passed some key legislation with a slim Senate majority and brought back international stability at talks with other world leaders at the G7 summit in Cornwall, England.

During his time in office, Donald Trump would regularly smear individual reporters, label unfavourable things they wrote about him “fake news” and only cooperate with certain conservative journalists.

Chris Wallace, host of Fox News Sunday, outlined what the president’s tactics were when it came to reporters in 2019.

"Now let’s talk about the president. He has done everything he can to undercut the media, to try to delegitimize us. And I think his purpose is clear: To raise doubts when we report critically about him and his administration that we can be trusted," he said at a Washington DC media museum benefit.

Recently, Mr Biden has come under fire with allegations of sexism over how he treated CNN’s chief White House reporter Kaitlin Collins, who asked him a series of questions about his recent summit with Russian president Vladimir Putin that seemed to hit a nerve as he concluded their exchange by saying, “If you don’t understand that, you’re in the wrong business”.

Journalism academics said the sexism should not be ignored, just because he is not Donald Trump.

“I saw it and I went ‘Wow’, and my first reaction was if it had been a male reporter, would Biden have been as dismissive and acerbic as he was, and my thought was he probably would not have,” Journalism Department chair at San Francisco State University Cristina Azocar told The Independent last week. She asserted, “And just because he’s not Trump, doesn’t mean we give him a pass on on that.”

Mr Biden apologised to Ms Collins, who said to CNN, “He did not have to apologise, though I appreciate he did”.

Fox News also covered aspects of their new poll that painted a less favourable light for Mr Biden.