Most Americans Don’t Trust President Trump’s Covid-19 Briefings

Of the over 9,500 people surveyed, 29% said the White House gets facts right “some of the time” and 36% said it got them right “hardly ever.”

But nearly 67% of Americans said they consider public health organizations and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to get the facts right “almost all” or “most” of the time.

The nonpartisan organization surveyed 9,654 U.S. adults online last week to compile its results.

Regarding respondents who weighed in on which entity they thought got the facts right more often, the divide was along party lines. For example, most Democrat-leaning adults were apt to say health organizations and state governments were likely to get the facts correct. Republican-leaning adults, meanwhile, said the president and health organizations were likely to get the facts correct. (The CDC is run by the federal government.)

In addition, Republicans are leading the charge that the Covid-19 pandemic has been overblown.

In late April, after Covid-19 had been spreading throughout the U.S. for about a month, 47% of Republicans said the virus was exaggerated. That percentage grew to 63% in early June.

Meanwhile, the share of Democrats who said it is overblown grew from 14% to 18% in that timeframe.