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Things got heated quickly on “The Five” after co-hosts Jessica Tarlov and Jeanine Pirro went after each other over constant interruptions. The two hosts also took turns accusing each other of continually veering “off-topic.”
The controversy arose as Tarlov compared former President Donald Trump’s and President Joe Biden’s poll numbers following the Israel-Hamas truce.
Below is a transcript of the exchange:
TARLOV: Biden’s up four points and is now up one over Trump. There was a YouGov poll that came out last week that had Biden up over Trump. The New York Times/Siena poll, which we gave its due, and we talked about the fact that Biden was down and he was losing the swing states in the crosstabs.
And The New York Times didn’t even cover this part of it. The crosstabs revealed that if Trump is convicted of anything and he has 91 counts that he’s facing, he loses by 10 points and he loses every single swing state —
PIRRO: What’s that got to do with, “What would you do to negotiate to get the hostages out?”
TARLOV: I answered. No. My point is—
PIRRO: We’re not talking about Donald Trump.
JESSE WATTERS: Two points in the real—
TARLOV: In the average, but I’m not—
PIRRO: But that’s not the topic. That’s not the topic.
TARLOV: You always say that is not the topic when—
PIRRO: Because you go off-topic!
TARLOV: Let’s not talk about who goes off topic here.
PIRRO: Really!
TARLOV: But it is relevant because you start off by saying this guy is a moron. A hot war here, and a cold war there, and the border’s open, and whatever. So, I’m talking about what’s going on on the—
PIRRO: Donald Trump!
TARLOV: No! I’m talking about the—
PIRRO: You know what? It’s unfortunate that the way this president cares about soldiers is enabling more attacks.
TARLOV: Don’t— What are you talking about?!
PIRRO: I’m talking and making a statement.
TARLOV: And I made a statement!
WATCH:
The poll numbers for President Joe Biden continue to plummet.
In early November, New York Times/Siena College polls indicated that Trump was leading in four of the six swing states; however, additional signs of Biden’s electoral danger quickly surfaced. The president’s advantage over Trump in head-to-head matches is decreasing.
In all but two of the most recent polls conducted this month by 13 different pollsters, Biden’s standing is lower than it was in their earlier surveys.
Additionally, Trump has begun to gather momentum even though polls indicate that the majority of the movement is coming from voters who are switching from Biden to Trump, even though they may still remain undecided.
Now, more than at any other time in the previous year, Trump has a larger vote share, according to the average national poll.
The data at the state level is equally impressive. Apart from the polls conducted by the New York Times and Siena, over the past seven days, additional surveys have indicated that Trump is leading by 8 points in Arizona and 5 points in Michigan.
A number of factors, including the emergence of independent and third-party candidates who have the potential to deflect votes from both Biden and Trump, the onset of war in the Middle East, and Biden’s recent decline and political predicament approximately 11 months before Election Day, indicate that Biden is losing ground to both Trump and dependable Democratic constituencies.
The results of this week’s NBC News poll were startling: Trump defeated Biden 46 percent to 42 percent of voters under the age of 35.
While that was well within the wide margin of error for such a small subgroup, other polls indicate a tight race with a Democratic constituency that has historically been dependable. In surveys conducted this month by Quinnipiac University (Biden +9), Fox News (Biden +7), and Morning Consult (Biden +2), Biden’s leads among voters aged 18 to 34 were all in the single digits. (Trump prevailed over Biden in all four voter surveys.)
While there are a few polls that indicate Biden has a lead among young voters approaching his 2020 margins, these are the exception rather than the rule.
This has sparked a discussion about whether Trump is actually gaining the significant ground with younger voters that the polling indicates or if those figures are just the result of bias in the polling process. According to a widely accepted theory, even though a large number of liberal younger voters will support Biden in November, they are not currently participating in polls because they are not enthusiastic about Biden and his party, for example, because of his administration’s support for Israel in its war with Hamas.
However, Biden has never performed well in polls with younger voters—he is the oldest president in history. Additionally, phone surveys are a challenging method of reaching younger voters (of the four above, all but Morning Consult were conducted via telephone).
One thing is for sure: Biden’s lead over Trump is dwindling. However, these polls also show two additional trendlines that are concerning for the incumbent.
First, at this stage of his first term, his approval rating has been declining, which is already historically low for a president.
In the FiveThirtyEight average earlier this month, Biden’s approval rating dropped to 38%, the lowest level since July 2022. In a similar vein, Biden’s reading of 40% in RealClearPolitics this month was his lowest since August 2022.
In the meantime, Trump’s popularity is growing. When it comes to Trump’s position against Biden in head-to-head comparisons, RealClearPolitics’ average for the past little over a year has shown him to be between 42 and 46 percent.
Not only did Trump surpass 46 percent for the first time this month, but he also surpassed 47 percent this week, roughly matching his vote share from the 2020 election.
Trump is becoming more popular, according to polls that track undecided voters. One such poll by Fox News showed Trump leading Biden by a slim margin, 50% to 46%.
Biden’s approval rating has been steadily declining since May, according to FiveThirtyEight’s average. April is when RealClearPolitics first started.
According to FiveThirtyEight, Trump’s average favorable rating has actually been rising over the last two months, going from 39% on September 1 to 42% as of late last week.
