MSNBC's "Morning Joe" took some delight this morning in highlighting a new CNN poll which suggests that Trump's approval ratings have sunk to an all new low of just 38% among registered voters.

Of course, it took us all of 30 seconds to find the following details about the polling methodology which reveal that CNN did nothing more than produce yet another "fake poll" courtesy of aggressive "oversamples" designed to goal seek their desired results...but who cares? Alas, a 30/25/42 split between Democrats, Republicans and Independents is no where near the actual distribution of registered voters...but kudos to CNN for overloading the 'Independent' bucket in this "fake poll" rather than the Democrat bucket...much smarter strategy but still fake.

Among the entire sample, 30% described themselves as Democrats, 25% described themselves as Republicans, and 42% described themselves as independents or members of another party.

Irrespective of the 'fakeness', here are the results as presented by CNN:

Not surprisingly, MSNBC seized upon the fake poll results this morning to gloat about the Trump's 'sad' numbers. But it was, Rick Tyler, a former campaign spokesman for Ted Cruz turned MSNBC political analyst, who took the direness of the low, if fake, poll numbers a step further saying that Trump should be placed on "24-hour suicide watch".

"Joe, if I were a political consultant looking at a candidate who had these kind of numbers, I’d have him on 24-hour suicide watch. These numbers are not good. They don’t look recoverable." "The administration and the vice president can complain about the New York Times story but we wouldn’t have this story if the president’s polls numbers were in the mid fifties, high fifties, or low sixties."

Of course, if that name, Rick Tyler, sounds familiar it's probably because he's the guy who was fired last year from the presidential campaign of Ted Cruz after literally spreading "fake news" about Marco Rubio. Here's a quick recap from Politico:

Ted Cruz on Monday asked for the resignation of top aide Rick Tyler, who he accused of a “grave error of judgment” for promoting a false story that questioned Marco Rubio’s faith. The story and accompanying transcript from The Daily Pennsylvanian, a student newspaper, said Rubio had walked by a Cruz staffer on Saturday who was reading a Bible, and told him it didn’t “have many answers in it.” Tyler, Cruz’s communications director, posted the story on Facebook on Sunday, but later deleted it and apologized after a Cruz staffer said Rubio didn’t make any such comment. But Cruz decided greater action was needed. "Our campaign should not have sent it. That’s why I’ve asked for Rick Tyler’s resignation,” Cruz told reporters in Las Vegas, where he was campaigning ahead of Tuesday’s Nevada caucuses.

But, it took less than one week for MSNBC to decide that Tyler's skills in spreading misinformation were a perfect fit for their 'news' organization and so they made him an offer. Per the Washington Times:

Rick Tyler, the former Ted Cruz campaign spokesman who was fired this week for circulating a fake story about Marco Rubio, announced Friday that he has been hired as a contributor for MSNBC. Mr. Tyler will make his first appearance Friday at 5 p.m. ET on “Meet the Press Daily,” Mediaite reported. “[I]’ll be on Meet the Press Daily with @chucktodd for the first time as an @MSNBC contributor. I hope you’ll watch,” he tweeted Friday afternoon. His Twitter profile description now reads, “MSNBC Contributor.”

Meanwhile, all of the above will only play to the benefit of Trump in 2020 as the constant flow of 'fake news' and 'fake polls' will serve to bolster his support among voters who are fed up with the mainstream media and their loose affiliation with facts. Alas, one has to wonder whether maybe that is actually their goal...no one is better for their ratings than President Trump.