Former White House aide Jen Psaki said in a Tuesday interview on CNN that President Trump referring to her former boss as “Cheatin’ Obama” in a tweet may have “racial undertones.”
“The president brought up former President Obama, your former boss,” said “The Lead” host Jake Tapper. “He blamed him for basically creating no border. That followed a tweet in which he called — with zero context, I didn’t know what he was talking about — he was talking about his poll numbers with Rasmussen, ‘higher than Cheatin’ Obama.’ “
“I don’t know what he’s referring to. That’s an interesting thing to bring up during the Stormy Daniels saga,” he added, referring to the adult-film actress who has claimed she had an affair with Trump more than a decade ago.
{mosads}”Given Trump’s history, you can guess that there might be racial undertones there,” replied Psaki, a former White House communications director who serves as a CNN contributor. “He was the founder of the ‘birther’ movement. Perhaps I’m going to a very evil place with that, but history tells us that’s a possibility.”
“Do you think he’s saying because he’s black, he cheats?” Tapper asked.
“I don’t know. If he cheated, he shouldn’t have been president. Lots of possibilities,” Psaki responded. “Beyond that one outlier poll, it tells you nothing.”
While a Rasmussen poll released on Monday shows Trump at 50 percent approval, the RealClearPolitics (RCP) polling average puts his approval rating significantly lower, at 41.8 percent. Rasmussen has consistently shown higher approval ratings for Trump than other polls.
Obama sat at 47.5 approval in the RCP average at the same point in his presidency, on April 4, 2010.
“What you’re looking at is rolling averages. His rolling average was 38 percent. 11 points below any other president since 1945,” Psaki said. “Next was President Clinton. It is sad that he’s grabbing that poll. What it means, I don’t really know. That’s my best guess”
Psaki, 39, signed with CNN in February of 2017, shortly after Trump took office.