US President Donald Trump announced Thursday he will sue The New York Times over an unfavourable opinion poll and suggested that what he called “fake” surveys should be criminalised.
Trump lashed out after publication of a New York Times/Siena University poll finding only 40 per cent approval for the 79-year-old Republican — in line with multiple other polls showing declining support a year into his second term.
“The Times Siena Poll…will be added to my lawsuit against The Failing New York Times,” Trump said on his Truth Social platform. “They will be held fully responsible for all of their Radical Left lies and wrongdoing!”
Expanding on the threat, Trump posted that “Fake and Fraudulent Polling should be, virtually, a criminal offence.”
Trump has fired off multiple defamation lawsuits against media companies, including the BBC, CNN, Wall Street Journal, CBS and ABC. Some have ended in multi-million-dollar settlements.
He first filed a $15 billion defamation suit against the Times in September 2025, claiming the leading US newspaper had run false stories to hurt his 2024 presidential campaign and reputation. The complaint was thrown out by a federal judge before being refiled in amended form in October.
The Times responded by calling that new lawsuit “an attempt to stifle independent reporting” and “intimidation.”
Thursday’s Times/Siena poll was the latest opinion survey finding that Trump’s popularity continues to slide over his handling of the economy and a military-style crackdown on illegal immigration.
Times/Siena is considered to be among the most accurate and highest profile of US political surveys. Its latest findings were especially notable for laying out what the Times called the unravelling of Trump’s winning 2024 coalition.
Young and non-white voters who turned out for Trump in the election against Democrat Kamala Harris have now left him, the poll found, leaving him with his previous core base of older and white voters.
AFP
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