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Garbled grammar aside, Trump's essential message is this: My approval rating isn't bad at all!

Except, he's wrong.

Here's George H.W. Bush back to Jimmy Carter:

Bush, Ronald Reagan and Carter were all in the stratosphere compared to Trump at the six-month mark of their presidencies. Worth noting: Bush and Carter went on to lose their re-election bids three and a half years later -- a sign that you always need to be cautious about making predictions after just 6 months.

Then, finally, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford:

So here are the facts: Donald Trump is less popular at the six-month mark of his presidency than eight of the nine men who have held the office before him. He's as unpopular as the ninth, who pardoned a president embroiled in the most serious scandal ever to hit the presidency.

That's probably not something he'll be touting on Twitter anytime soon.

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3 charts that show why Donald Trump's low approval ratings aren't normal at all - CNN International

White House chief strategist Steve Bannon joined Donald Trump's presidential campaign in August 2016. But the former executive chairman of the right-wing website Breitbart News has been part of Mr. Trump's trusted circle for many years.

The new book "Devil's Bargain: Steve Bannon, Donald Trump and the Storming of the Presidency" (Penguin) chronicles the intertwined paths of both men, and how they reached the White House.

Penguin

Author Joshua Green writes: "Any study of Trump's rise to the presidency is therefore unavoidably a study of Bannon, too."

Green, a senior national correspondent for Bloomberg Businessweek, has known Bannon since 2011 and has talked to him on and off the record ever since. "He was a filmmaker, he was this kind of fringe character in Washington that not a lot of people knew or thought would be important," Green said.

The book details how Bannon and Mr. Trump came together, as well as the rise of the alt-right and Bannon's years-long plot to tear down Hillary Clinton which, Green says, was what endeared him to Mr. Trump and helped him get elected.

Of Bannon, Green said, "Here's a guy who was very smart, who succeeded in all sorts of different realms, but came from a blue-collar family, deeply traditional Catholic background. Managed to get into Harvard Business School. Survived by his own wits at Goldman Sachs and Hollywood. I think that really gave him a connection to Trump, who saw him as a dealmaker, as someone who spoke his language, as somebody who's comfortable with moguls, and somebody who had ideas that Trump recognized at an intuitive level could advance Trump's career.

Time

"And of course then they had kind of a falling out when Bannon's profile rose to a level that Trump wasn't comfortable with," as personified by a Feb. 13, 2017 Time magazine cover shot of Bannon, labeled "The Great Manipulator."

"He had this kind of dramatic fall, and now he's back," Green said.

When asked what Bannon accomplished for the president, Green replied, "I think he did two things for Donald Trump: One is, Bannon was the mastermind of an interlocking group of political organizations funded by a right-wing billionaire whose mission was to tear down Hillary Clinton. The goal wasn't to do that for Trump; this was long before Trump was the nominee, but it was clear Clinton was probably going to be the Democratic candidate, and Trump wound up being the beneficiary of Bannon's efforts.

"We saw in the Republican primaries Donald Trump doesn't think a lot about policy but he's able to kind of dominate the opponents in a way most politicians aren't, and he used a lot of Bannon's ideas to do that and to knock out what everybody thought was the strongest Republican presidential field.

"The other thing he did is, when [Bannon] took over Trump's campaign in August, Trump was really floundering in the polls. Bannon managed to get Trump focused away from Megyn Kelly, away from the Khan family, and use all that anti-Hillary knowledge to keep him focused on the opposition."

Green acknowledged there was a lot of political overlap between the two, as Trump always had populist populist impulses, even if his earlier target was trade with Japan rather than trade with China. "I think Bannon really brought the idea of illegal immigration and understood its power as a political issue, and Trump really became the vessel for those ideas, and it's what carried him to the White House," Green said.

"They're not together on everything. Bannon, like most of us -- certainly myself -- did not understand from the get-go what a powerful politician Donald Trump was going to be. Bannon was advising him informally as long ago as 2010, thought he was an interesting guy, but nobody thought he was going to win the nomination or the presidency," Green said.

When asked if Bannon believes Mr. Trump could have won the presidency without his aid, Green replied, "I think if you tortured Bannon, he wouldn't answer that question. But my answer to that question is no, I don't think he could have. Bannon's efforts, specially the book 'Clinton Cash,' which Bannon helped mastermind, really tarnished his opponent in a way that she never fully recovered from.

"And then on the flip side his ability to keep Trump focused on Clinton in the homestretch of the race, and then you have the James Comey revelations, and suddenly Trump was able to pull ahead. I give Bannon a lot of credit for having helped Trump do that."

Barely six months into his administration, Mr. Trump's approval ratings are at record lows.

"He's lost a lot of support he had with independents, but his base has stuck with him," Green said. "The kind of people that Steve Bannon talks to has so far have stuck with him. The question is going to be, can Trump ever deliver anything for these people legislatively, or is he going to spend four years in national scandal? Ultimately he needs to deliver for them economically and fulfill some of these promises he made. There's no sign yet that he's really going to be able to do that in any area, other than cracking down on illegal immigration, which of course was one of Trump's big promises."

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"Devil's Bargain": How Steve Bannon helped elect Donald Trump - CBS News

Trumps decision to postpone the so-called U.S. startup visa program is the worst possible news for U.S. cities that are emerging innovation hubs.

Judging from President Donald Trumps announced intention to kill a program aimed at allowing foreign founders of successful startup firms to stay in the United States, he is not content with being the most anti-immigration, anti-environment and anti-free press U.S. leader in recent memory. He now wants to become the most anti-innovation one.

In a move that has drawn fire from some of the best-known U.S. technology innovators, the Trump administrations Department of Homeland Security announced July 10 that it will postpone until March 14, 2018 and may ultimately eliminate the so-called U.S. startup visa program.

The program, the International Entrepreneur Rule, was supposed to start this month. It was launched by former president Barack Obama toward the end of his term, and the Obama administration had estimated at the time that it would draw about 2,940 applications for temporary visas annually.

To be eligible for these visas, foreign innovators had to show that they had raised at least $250,000 from established U.S. investors, or more than $100,000 in U.S. government grants.

The foreign entrepreneurs had to own at least 10 percent of their startups, and had to be actively involved in their operations. If approved, their visas would be good for 30 months, and could be extended if their startups proved successful.

When I first read about this decision, I could hardly believe it. Anybody who has ever set foot in Silicon Valley, or in emerging innovation centers such as Austin or Miami, knows that foreigners are a driving force of U.S. scientific, technological and business innovations.

Some of the best-known U.S. innovators are foreign born, including Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX, Sergey Brin of Google and Garrett Camp of Uber. If Musks SpaceX company, which already employs about 6,000 people, succeeds in its goal of sending the first U.S. manned mission to Mars, it will be thanks to an immigrant.

Immigrants have founded 51 percent of the current crop of U.S. startups valued at more than $1 billion, according to a recent study by the National Foundation for American Policy. The study showed that 44 immigrant-founded companies had a collective market value of $168 billion.

For Miami, which was recently ranked by the Kauffman Foundations 2017 Index of Startup Activity as the No. 1 city with the highest rate of entrepreneurs opening new businesses, Trumps latest decision is next to his decision to withdraw from the Paris Accord on climate change the worst possible news.

Miami ranks No. 1 in the nation in immigrant-founded businesses with employees, according to another Kaufmann Foundation study cited by The Miami Heralds Nancy Dahlberg.

Vivek Wadhwa, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University and the author of a new book on innovation titled The driver in the driverless car, did not mince words when I asked him about Trumps decisions to delay and possibly kill the foreign entrepreneurs visa program.

The startup visa was the closest thing to a free lunch for the United States, Wadhwa told me. It would have enabled entrepreneurs all over the world to bring their ideas, inventions and money here to create jobs. No jobs are taken away, only new jobs created.

He added, The Trump administrations decision will only hurt U.S. competitiveness and help countries that are competing with it. It is the peak of stupidity and xenophobia, the most foolish of all policy decisions.

Likewise, the U.S. National Venture Capital Association, which represents startup investors, said in a statement that Trumps decision represents a fundamental misunderstanding of the critical role immigrant entrepreneurs play in growing the next generation of American companies.

My opinion: The delay and possible elimination of the startup visa program is an idiotic idea, even by Trump administration standards. While Canada, France, Singapore, Chile and several other countries are offering visas and financial incentives to foreign entrepreneurs, the United States is doing the opposite.

Trump keeps talking about saving coal miners jobs, as if that decaying and polluting industry represented Americas future. On the contrary, it represents Americas past, and Trumps ignorance about the knowledge economy that is driving the future will put the U.S. economy at risk. He is rapidly becoming the anti-innovation president.

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Donald Trump, the anti-innovation president - The Seattle Times

Snopes.com is sometimes derided by conservatives as a liberal news operation disguised as a fact-checking site.

But this month, Snopes put out a report favorable to President Trump, concluding that, yes, he is the victim of lies in the news and in social media. In a way, the report bolsters Mr. Trumps Twitter rants against fake news.

Snopes writes about a major strand of falsehood about the president that feeds into his persona as a bumbling fool, prone to accidents and devoid of any cultural sophistication.

The Snopes report generally shies away from criticizing the established news media the liberal New York Times-CNN-Washington Post-led anti-Trump reporting that the president castigates the most.

In fact, none of those three is mentioned by Snopes, even though former FBI director James B. Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that many, many stories on the Trump-Russia probe are dead wrong.

Trump supporters say the motive for Mr. Comeys conclusion is obvious: The mainstream media is trying to destroy the Trump presidency.

Snopes headlined its article, The Lies of Donald Trumps Critics, and How They Shape His Many Personas.

This article is intended as a neutral, reliable analysis of the lies, false allegations and misleading claims made about and against Donald Trump since his inauguration in January 2017, Snopes explains. Weve attempted to strip away the hyperbole, name-calling and generalizations, and examine the patterns and trends at work: what characterizes these lies and exaggerations, the effect they have, what might explain them.

Snopes does mention a few mainstream media errors, such as Politico reporting that the president signed a kids hat at the White House Easter egg roll but then carelessly tossed it to the crowd. Video showed he tossed it directly to the owner.

Also cited is a Newsweek report that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi evaded Mr. Trumps notorious bone-crunching power handshake by hugging the president instead. Missing from the account, said Snopes, is the fact that hugging is how Mr. Modi likes to greet fellow world leaders.

Snopes did not cite other, more serious mainstream media errors, such as Times report that Mr. Trump removed the bust of Martin Luther King form the Oval Office when he had not.

Or the BBC reporting that Mr. Trump snubbed Italys prime minister by not wearing an English-translation headset, when in fact he did listen via an earpiece.

Or The New York Times report in February that said Trump aides and senior Russian intelligence officials had repeated contacts in the year leading up to the election. Mr. Trumps team denies this, as did a more neutral source Mr. Comey.

Sen. Tom Cotton, Arkansas Republican, asked Mr. Comey: Would it be fair to characterize that story as almost entirely wrong?

Yes, Mr. Comey said.

It would be virtually impossible for Snopes to cover all the inaccurate anti-Trump stories, as listed by conservative news sites.

Another egregious story, according to Snopes, was a report that the Trump White House took down all references to climate change and LGBTQ rights from its website, when in fact it was simply transitioning from the Barack Obama home page to the Donald Trump WhiteHouse.gov.

Another major strand of falsehood about the President is the one that feeds into his persona as a bumbling fool, prone to accidents and devoid of any cultural sophistication, Snopes said.

In March, Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny came to the White House for the yearly St. Patricks Day White House visit. Recognizing Americas long friendship with Ireland, Mr. Trump read what he said was one of his favorite proverbs: Always remember to forget the friends that proved untrue, but never forget to remember those that have stuck by you.

The press immediately pounced, saying the president cited as an Irish proverb words written by a Nigerian poet.

Snopes said Mr. Trump never identified the words as coming from Ireland. The president used it to support his lead-in: As we stand together with our Irish friends

The entire episode is a remarkable example of something bordering on collective hallucination, most likely brought on by confirmation bias, the Snopes article said. Here hundreds of thousands of people including professional journalists working for influential news organizations, and a chat show host with more than three million nightly viewers [Stephen Colbert] literally heard Trump say something he never said, in most cases probably because it confirmed a pre-existing image of the President as a poorly read, culturally ignorant buffoon.

The article was written by Dan MacGuill, whom Snopes describes as a journalist and fact-checker from Dublin, Ireland.

Conservatives took to Twitter to express pleasant surprise that Snopes would devote any space to debunking anti-Trump stories.

This is really surprising and unexpected from Snopes, said Ashley Rae, AKA @Communism_Kills.

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Snopes publishes favorable Trump report - Washington Times

"State visits are different from a normal visit and at a time when the President of the USA has policies that many in our country disagree with, I am not sure it is appropriate for our government to roll out the red carpet," Khan told CNN in an interview Monday.

The delay comes amid concern that there will be mass protests against Trump in the British capital.

Trump met with UK Prime Minister Theresa May at the G20 summit in Hamburg and told reporters he would be visiting London.

May's offer of a state visit, which typically includes a banquet with the Queen, was made during her visit to Washington in January, just days after Trump's inauguration.

Khan, the first Muslim mayor of a western capital city, did not, however, rule out meeting with the US President, if offered the chance.

"If someone has views that I think can be changed I am ready to play my role," he told CNN.

"If you somehow think it is not possible to be a Muslim and a proud westerner I am happy to disabuse you of that idea, whether you are a reporter for CNN or Donald Trump."

CNN has reached out to the White House for comment.

Khan and Trump's relationship got off to a famously bumpy start over Khan's opposition to Trump's decision to bar from the US people from a list of mainly Muslim countries.

Then, after a terror attack on London Bridge last month that left eight people dead, Khan's reassurance to Londoners that there was "no reason to be alarmed" by the increased police presence drew an extraordinary rebuke from Trump on Twitter.

"At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is 'no reason to be alarmed!'" Trump tweeted.

Khan responded by saying his remarks had been taken out of context because he had been referring to the enhanced police presence.

But Trump then tweeted: "Pathetic excuse by London Mayor Sadiq Khan who had to think fast on his 'no reason to be alarmed' statement. MSM [mainstream media] is working hard to sell it!"

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No red carpet for Trump, says London's Khan - CNN International