Post from Truth Social

A retracted third-party poll recast as a Times fraud

The post went up at 03:22 UTC on October 23, which is 10:22 pm Central or 11:22 pm Eastern on October 22. Earlier that day Trump had posted "Getting ready to land in Iowa. Big Rally happening," so this came after the rally, either on the flight back or after he returned to Washington. Either way it is late at night in his local time, and it appeared in the same overnight run as the Ilhan Omar name post.

The news peg is real. On October 20, after FiftyPlusOne questioned its data, Wedgewood Polls put out a statement admitting it had fabricated its results and calling the operation a "social experiment." The New York Times had listed 15 Wedgewood surveys in its midterm poll tracker. It removed all of them and added an editor's note. Newsweek, MS NOW, Decision Desk HQ and other aggregators had carried the same numbers. Trump's version, "The New York Times got caught!", changes the roles. A news outlet that was fooled by an outside firm, along with many others, becomes the party caught in a fraud. "They used a Company" turns aggregation into commissioning.

From one retraction to "Everything ... is 'ARTIFICIAL'"

The post moves in three steps, each one wider than the last:

1. One firm's fabricated numbers ("ADMITTED that the Poll Numbers they published were made up and FAKE").
2. A lifetime of victimhood: "This is what I've had to deal with, right from the beginning!"
3. A total verdict: "Everything about The Failing New York Times is 'ARTIFICIAL.'"

Taking a single verified instance as proof of a universal claim is the main defensive move here. It works as rationalization. The Wedgewood admission becomes a reason to throw out unfavorable polling in general. Three days earlier, a Washington Post-ABC-Ipsos poll had put his approval at a record-low 33%. The post never mentions that poll. It doesn't need to: if polls the Times carries can be "made up," the 33% figure loses its sting without being addressed. The likely underlying injury is the polling trend itself. The Wedgewood story supplied a vindicating fact, and the post grabs it. Splitting completes the picture. The Times is "Failing" and "ARTIFICIAL" in its entirety, with no difference drawn between its own NYT/Siena polling and a third-party entry in an aggregate.

The middle sentence, "right from the beginning!", is where the post drifts from the news item to personal grievance. It casts him as a long-suffering target, while the closing claim about the lawsuit casts him as the fighter who is turning the tables. That is a small redemption arc (persecuted, then vindicated, then going on offense) and it fits his familiar Victim-to-Warrior archetype pairing.

The lawsuit link

"Our powerful Lawsuit against them is getting stronger and stronger everyday" connects the poll story to his defamation suit against the Times. That suit was first filed in September 2025, struck as too long, and refiled at $15 billion. It is about the paper's reporting on him and a related book, not its polling, so Wedgewood has no evident legal bearing on it. The sentence presents an unrelated news event as evidence in his case. This is a recurring pattern: anything embarrassing to an adversary gets folded into a pending grievance against it.

Authorship

Several features point to Trump writing it himself. It was posted late at night after a rally. "everyday" is used where "every day" is meant, which is a real usage error. ALL CAPS falls on the emotional words "ADMITTED" and "FAKE." He uses scare quotes on the capitalized "ARTIFICIAL," which is idiosyncratic. Nouns are capitalized at random ("Company," "Poll Numbers," "Lawsuit"). And the post drifts from report to grievance halfway through. The closing "Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DONALD J. TRUMP" has appeared on both staff-drafted and personal posts since 2025, so it doesn't decide the question either way. The firm's name is given correctly, but it was the headline name in every report, so it isn't the kind of precision that suggests a staff writer.

Delegitimizing the press, without a call to act

The hostility is aimed at an institution and stays within the language of litigation. Nothing points to a person, describes the Times in dehumanizing terms, or asks followers to do anything beyond accepting the framing. The epistemic effect matters more than the danger. The word "ARTIFICIAL" invites readers to treat everything the Times publishes, including the polls showing his low approval, as invented. Accepting that is a condition of agreeing with the post.

Language

Syntax is simple and the sentences are complete. The one usage error ("everyday") is common in edited prose and has nothing to do with paraphasia. The logic holds together within its own premise, even though that premise mischaracterizes the Times' role. Nothing here departs from his documented writing baseline.

Sources: Axios, Washington Times, Mediaite, AllSides, Urban Milwaukee

Fact Verification

Status on the post date (Oct 22-23, 2026), from the CourtListener RECAP docket for Trump v. New York Times Co., 8:25-cv-02487 (M.D. Fla., Judge Steven D. Merryday):

• Sept 2025: the original 85-page complaint was struck four days after filing. A 40-page amended complaint followed on Oct 16, 2025.
• Dec 15, 2025: the defendants moved to dismiss for improper venue (Doc. 43) and for failure to state a claim (Doc. 44). Mediation on May 6, 2026 ended without agreement.
• July 6, 2026 (Doc. 88): Merryday denied the venue motion and kept the case in Florida. This was a real procedural win for Trump. Volokh/Reason quotes the order saying the plaintiff's choice of forum "heavily weighs against transfer."
• July 22, 2026: hearing on the 12(b)(6) motion. July 27 (Doc. 94): the judge deferred ruling on dismissal and gave Trump leave to amend a second time. Trump called this a win, and the Times said he "has had this chance twice previously and failed each time."
• Aug 27, 2026 (Doc. 99): Trump filed a 62-page second amended complaint, still seeking $15 billion.
• Sept 17 (Doc. 103): the defendants filed a supplement to their motion to dismiss. Law360 (Sept 21) reported they argued the new allegations still fail to show actual malice.
• Oct 1 (Doc. 104): Trump's opposition. Oct 14 (Doc. 107): the defendants' reply. Nothing was filed between Oct 14 and the post date.

So on the post date the case was a fully briefed motion to dismiss waiting for a ruling. The court has never ruled on the merits. The judge's two rulings on the pleadings so far were to strike the complaint once and to order it rewritten once. Nothing changed "every day" in the week before the post.

The post links the suit to the Wedgewood polls, and that link fails. The suit is about two 2024 Times articles and the Penguin Random House book "Lucky Loser" by Craig and Buettner. A text search of the second amended complaint finds no mention of "poll," "Siena" or "Wedgewood." In January 2026 Trump said a Times/Siena poll "will be added" to the suit, and in June 2026 he said the same of the paper's Iran-war coverage. The August 2026 complaint contains neither. Wedgewood admitted on Oct 20, 2026 that it had faked its data, after the last complaint was filed. The Times was one of many aggregators it fooled, alongside Newsweek, Decision Desk HQ, The Hill and others. Wedgewood's admission therefore adds nothing to the defamation claims, and they rise or fall on actual malice over the book and articles.

Why "mostly false" rather than "false": "stronger and stronger" is partly opinion. The case did survive a venue challenge, and the judge chose leave to amend over dismissal, so describing it as alive and pending is accurate. The factual claim of growing strength, and the suggestion that the Wedgewood news adds to it, are unsupported. |

Overall Veracity: 48%