Donald Trump thinks reader polls on Drudge Report and Time Magazine should carry more weight in judging public reaction to Thursday’s GOP presidential debate than a Fox News panel that ran immediately after the debate.
Speaking with Don Lemon live on CNN on Friday night, Trump lauded his winning performance in reader polls asking who won the debate, particularly the poll run by Drudge Report.
{mosads}“I’m not saying I won, I’m just telling you polls that came out from Drudge,” he said. “What’s better than Drudge? He’s a fantastic guy. What he’s built is unbelievably respected.”
The Drudge Report poll asked readers who won the debate. Trump led with 45 percent of the vote. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) came in second with 14 percent, and no other candidate had more than 11 percent support.
Trump also cited coverage by Time Magazine, the New York Times and the Washington Post that he said showed him as the victor.
In contrast, the businessman panned a focus group run by pollster Frank Luntz immediately after the debate on Fox News.
Trump said Luntz “kept calling” him, trying to convince the candidate to do business with Luntz.
“I told him no. And now every time I see a poll, it’s negative,” he said. “The guy’s a lightweight.”
Elsewhere in the CNN interview, Trump again ripped debate moderator and Fox News host Megyn Kelly, calling her “highly overrated.”
“She gets out and starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions,” Trump told Lemon. “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her — wherever.”
Trump complimented Lemon and CNN for their coverage of his campaign, and claimed partial credit for the network’s gains against Fox News.
“You guys are making a lot of progress thanks to me. Your ratings are way up because you’re covering Trump all the time,” he said.
Trump suggested he “should get a piece” of CNN’s profits — specifically, “25 percent.”
He took parting shots at Fox News as the interview wrapped up, claiming the network has been “inundated” with social media complaints for his treatment at the debate.
“I was told by somebody at Fox that they’ve never seen anything like it,” he said.
– Updated at 10:26 p.m.