“Without the phony Russia Witch Hunt, my approval rating would be at 75%”
Pretty sure Trump doesn’t understand how numbers work. He’s working for an absolute max of about 65. His approval rating is 6% among Democrats, and they represent about 37% of the electorate, so he would need 100% approval from independents plus 100% of Republicans to get to just 65% overall. And one hundred percents don’t happen, particularly from independents.
He could get to 75% with imaginary math. All he would need would be every Republican, and 133% of independents!
That’s how you know Rasmussen’s poll numbers are inaccurate. They simply don’t add up. In order for Trump to get to 50%, assuming 6% of Democrats, he would need 95% of Republicans and 57% of independents, but he’s currently at 89/39. I could see some circumstances that could get him to 57% approval among independents, so it is possible for him to reach 95/57 (and therefore 50% overall), but he’d have to pull off something extremely positive that would win bi-partisan praise, like getting Russia to pull all their troops from Eastern Ukraine and brokering a true peace there. He’s clearly not there at the moment. He’s never scored higher than 42% approval from independents because he’s only doing things that please his own base, and that puts a low ceiling on his approval rating.
Trump has the lowest Gallup approval rating in history (40) for Presidents in December of their second year, but there is hope for him. The two guys nearest to his low “Second December” rating were Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan at 41, and they each left office with solid approval ratings above 60%. But he won’t get there by simply pleasing his base.
“Trump doesn’t know how numbers work.”
Of course he doesn’t. Knowing facts – heck, believing in the existence of facts – is an obstacle to believing whatever you want to believe. It also makes it harder to believe that people who contradict you are doing so for no reason other than personal spite.