which is fascinating

I know! And I can totally explain it to you.

People don't generally like when politicians lie

Almost. They don't like it when politicians mislead them in ways that makes them make seriously wrong decisions. Trump doesn't exactly lie. He gets a detail wrong, either by accident (there's been several numbers thrown around about refugees, and the correct number depends on time frame, whether you're just talking about Syria, or any muslim country, or anywhere, or visas, or whatever) or by intentional exaggeration. Any error in number the left jumps all over because they think "we got him!!!!" But all you actually do is spread his real message: "Obama wants to take in refugees." "There exist illegal aliens from Mexico who rape and murder and we should do something about it." "There exist American muslims who celebrated 9/11."

So when CNN spends hours and hours dissecting exactly who wrong on the number of Syrian refugees Obama wants to take in, the public (the majority of whom do not want any Syrian refugees) hear "Trump doesn't want refugees."

When CNN spends hours and hours dissecting the exact percentage of illegal aliens who commit rapes and murders, the public (the majority of whom want illegal immigration stopped) hear "Trump wants to stop illegal aliens."

When CNN spends hours and hours dissecting how many muslims celebrating on top of a build are in a "swarm" as the news reports said, the public (who appreciates anybody pointing out that there are muslims in the US who celebrated 9/11) hear "Trump is willing to point out muslims celebrating 9/11 when nobody else will."

This is how Trump dominates the news cycle and dominates the polls, without spending any money on TV ads. He puts out the troll bait, and the media takes it every. Single. Time. And they can't help themselves! One, because they think they've got that wascally Trump this time! and two, because it sells. Their leftie audience loves to click on "Trump is wrong!" stories and feel smug satisfaction that they've seen through this two faced liar and the right wing audience loves to click on "Trump is wrong!" stories to see how the media distorted his words this time and leave comments about how they don't care.