Then, he touted his record approval ratings from Republicans.

Trump being Trump, he couldn’t simply hype that approval rating, as he did in a tweet 11 days ago. He had to make the point explicit: If I’m that popular, then clearly what I’m doing about the coronavirus is the right thing to do. Never mind that the approval rating was only among Republicans; the point Trump was trying to make was that the numbers don’t lie, and he’s delivering for his base.

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Except the numbers do lie. Trump’s approval among Republicans isn’t 96 percent, any more than it was consistently 95 percent from October through March and no more than it was 94 percent from July through September.

Approval ratings don’t work like that, first of all; they move up and down. Second, no independent public polls put Trump’s approval that high. He’s popular among Republicans, yes, but not as popular and not as consistently as he presents.

What’s most obvious about Trump’s delineation of his approval ratings is when he decides to tack on another percentage point.

All of this began in January of last year when Trump touted a 93 percent approval — as measured in a Conservative Political Action Conference straw poll. That’s not only nonscientific but also a reflection of a very particular population that’s inclined toward enthusiastic Trump support. Nonetheless, for several months, Trump repeatedly claimed to be at 93 percent approval, apparently based on the CPAC results. (In early March, he celebrated having “just hit” 93 percent, which …)

On July 13, Trump suddenly got an upgrade in this nonexistent polling: He was at 94 percent! He didn’t offer any source for this improvement but did compare it with Ronald Reagan’s approval among Republicans, which Trump said was “87 percent.” (It’s not clear where that Reagan number came from, either. In Gallup’s polling, Reagan was regularly higher than 90 percent with his party.)

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In the fall, Trump suddenly faced a significant threat to his presidency as the House opened an impeachment inquiry centered on his interactions with Ukraine. Soon after that inquiry started, Trump had news to report.

It was a moment when Trump needed to keep Republican lawmakers on his side, given that they’d be voting on whether to oust him from office. The tacit argument? How could Republicans in the Senate vote to remove a president who had 95 percent approval with their base! Again, no source for the poll, but Trump pushed it out as factual 25 times from October through March.

Then the pandemic emerged, and Trump faced a new threat to his presidency. And, as though summoned from thin air — which, by all appearances, it was:

Wow, indeed.

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It’s worth noting that Trump’s focus on the ratings of his briefings is spurred by a similar motivation, an insistence to the world that he’s popular and in demand. It’s slightly different, though, replacing apparently invented numbers with a focus instead on a high-water mark.

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Contrary to Trump’s assertion that he doesn’t care about the ratings his briefings have earned, he does. If you don’t believe me, take his own word for it.

As we pointed out more than a week ago, though, Trump’s insistence that the ratings for the briefings are unparalleled is heavily dependent on the presentation made by the New York Times in an article last month. You see it referred to repeatedly above; the comparisons to the NFL and “The Bachelor” come from the Times’s reporting.

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But those ratings have faded over time, and networks are more reluctant to air them in their entirety, no doubt given Trump’s proclivity for redirecting them away from a focus on the coronavirus and onto praise for his administration. Again, though, this is what Trump does: He takes a good number or good data point and offers it over and over and over again. Ever heard him talk about the record ratings his TV show, “The Apprentice,” got? It won the ratings race precisely one week, for the finale of its first season. Trump has been dining out on that ever since.

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Again, though, at least those numbers were real. His new 96 percent approval? Not backed by any recent public poll. (The most recent public poll released before his April 10 tweet was from Fox News. It had Trump’s approval with Republicans at a good, but more modest, 89 percent.)