Most Republicans believe the media make up stories about Trump

Today in shocking news: The party of the president who rose to prominence denouncing “fake news” thinks, by and large, the news about him is fake.

That’s the latest according to a new Politico/Morning Consult poll, which found that 76 percent of Republicans think the news media fabricates stories about Trump and his administration.

The distrust is even higher among strong Trump supporters: 85 percent of people who strongly approve of the president’s performance think news about him gets made up.

The rest of the country isn’t all that trusting of the media either. Even though 65 percent of polled Democrats thought news about the Trump administration was true, the overall average found that nearly half of Americans — 46 percent — disagree.

Trump has attacked the media throughout his presidency, most recently tweeting this, amid pointed press coverage that Trump lied Monday when he said other presidents didn’t fully console families whose children died in the military:

Following reports that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson called the president a “fucking moron” after he asked for an unheard-of increase in American nukes, Trump even called for revoking the broadcast license of NBC which published the report.

But most Americans — and Trump’s appointed leader of the Federal Communications Commission, which handles media licenses — don’t feel the same way.

The poll found that only 28 percent of voters think the federal government should be able to revoke the licenses of major news organizations whose coverage it says is fake.

“I believe in the First Amendment,” FCC chairman Ajit Pai said at a telecom law event in Washington on Tuesday. “The FCC under my leadership will stand for the First Amendment, and under the law the FCC does not have the authority to revoke a license of a broadcast station based on the content of a particular newscast.”