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Most Unsurprised by Trump’s Ukraine Actions, ABC Poll Shows
By
Updated on
- A CBS News poll also shows that majority approve of inquiry
- Surveys done as House Democrats start Trump impeachment review
Almost two in three Americans see Donald Trump’s move to ask a foreign leader to investigate one of the president’s political rivals as a serious problem, but most said they weren’t surprised, an ABC News/Ipsos poll shows.
A separate CBS News poll released Sunday also showed that 55% of Americans -- and an overwhelming number of Democrats - say they approve of Congress opening an impeachment inquiry, but there’s a split on whether his actions were illegal and he should be impeached.
In the ABC/News Ipsos poll, taken Friday and Saturday, Americans were asked about the phone call in July with Volodymyr Zelenskiy, in which Trump urged the new Ukrainian president to probe former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter Biden.
Some 64% termed Trump’s actions “very serious” or “somewhat serious.” Still, only about one in four said they were following the news of Trump’s call very closely -- and most of those were Democrats.
Overall, 17% said they were “very surprised” or “somewhat surprised” by Trump’s actions, against 83% who were “not so surprised” or “not surprised at all.”
The ABC poll was conducted among 504 adults. It had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 percentage points.
The CBS News survey showed that 31% of Americans said Trump’s handling of matters with Ukraine may have been improper but were still legal, while 28% -- including most Republicans -- said the president acted properly. Another 41%, including most Democrats, think he has acted illegally, the poll found.
Asked whether Trump deserves to be impeached, 42% said he does, 36% said he doesn’t, and 22% said it’s too soon to say, according to the poll. It was conducted by YouGov of 2,059 U.S. residents interviewed Sept. 26-27, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.3 percentage points.
— With assistance by Mark Niquette
(Updates with CBS News poll from second paragraph.)
Photographer: Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images
Politics
Trump Paints Impeachment as Attack on Voters, Guns, Health Care
By- President says Democrats’ efforts seek to thwart voters’ will
- Says Democrats targeting him ‘because I’m fighting for you’
Donald Trump mounted a defense to Democrats’ impeachment investigation on Saturday by saying the opposition party is trying to oust him because he’s fighting for the voters who elected him, and that the future of the country is at stake.
Trump’s approach signals a new effort to rally his political base to counter the growing threat to his presidency.
Trump argued Democrats are undertaking “the single greatest scam in the history of American politics” and portrayed the investigation as part of a campaign by the opposition party to take away everything from guns to health care.
“It’s all very simple, they’re trying to stop me because I’m fighting for you -- and I’ll never let that happen,” Trump said in a video he tweeted to his 65 million Twitter followers, in which he appears outside the White House.
Trump is seeking to rally his most ardent supporters after a week of damaging headlines, including revelations that the president asked Ukraine’s leader to investigate top Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden during a July phone call.
Trump also continued to defend his conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy as having been appropriate. The U.S. president said the fact the Zelenskiy -- speaking to reporters during a meeting with Trump this week at the United Nations -- said he didn’t feel pressure to investigate Biden “should by and of itself bring an end to the new and most recent Witch Hunt.”
Trump’s call was Zelenskiy was summarized in a partial transcript released on Wednesday.
Democrats have said that the mere fact Trump suggested investigating a top political rival to a foreign leader raised grave concerns, as did the president’s request for Zelenskiy to look into Ukraine’s role in the 2016 U.S. election.
Democratic ‘Savages’
The president has responded to those claims with scorn, calling members of the opposition party “savages” in a tweet early Saturday, and subsequently calling for the resignation of Adam Schiff, the California Democrat and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee who will be heading up the impeachment inquiry.
A poll released Thursday by NPR News and Marist found that while Americans favored impeaching Trump by a narrow 49% to 46% margin, 93% of GOP voters opposed the effort.
Representative Adam Schiff
Photographer: Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg
The president’s campaign advisers have argued the effort will ultimately backfire on Democrats. The president’s son, Eric Trump, tweeted that the campaign had raised $8.5 million in small-dollar donations following Democrats’ announcement of the impeachment inquiry.
Campaign manager Brad Parscale said the campaign and Republican National Committee were planning a joint ad buy of $10 million with a commercial arguing Democrats are trying to use the impeachment probe “to steal the election.”
“Democrats want to deny Americans the opportunity to vote to re-elect President Trump and people need to know the facts,” Parscale said.
The White House hasn’t formalized a new operation to handle the impeachment inquiry. Jay Sekulow, the president’s outside attorney, said his team will continue to respond as they had in prior cases.
“There is no war room being established,” Sekulow said.
Deals
Trump and Schwarzman Disagree on Whether They Discussed Bidens
By
President Donald Trump is on tape saying he had a conversation with Blackstone Group Inc. founder Steve Schwarzman about former Vice President Joe Biden’s son. On Friday, Schwarzman’s spokeswoman disputed that account.
Trump presented his version of events at a closed-door gathering with U.S. diplomats in New York this week, where he attacked Democratic rival Biden and disparaged a whistle-blower complaint now at the heart of an impeachment inquiry. At one point, the president brought up Schwarzman, who has at times functioned as an intermediary between the U.S. and Chinese governments. Trump asserted that Biden’s son, Hunter, got the Chinese to contribute $1.5 billion for an investment fund.
Politics
Lindsey Graham Gets Linda Tripp Trending While Defending Trump
By- Trump ally derides ‘hearsay’ as a basis for impeachment
- Memories of the secret tapes that marked Bill Clinton downfall
Lindsey Graham stirred up a blast from the past on Saturday in a Twitter message intended to defend Donald Trump, saying he hopes a president can’t be impeached “based on hearsay testimony.”
Within minutes, the long memory of Twitter users had the name “Linda Tripp” blowing up on social media as people recalled the former White House aide’s pivotal role in President Bill Clinton’s 1998 impeachment.
Politics
Trump’s Envoy for Ukraine Quits After Being Named in Complaint
By- Kurt Volker spoke to Ukraine leader a day after Trump call
- Volker, a veteran diplomat, took Ukraine post as a volunteer
Kurt Volker, President Donald Trump’s special envoy to Ukraine, has stepped down, according to two people familiar with the matter, a day after he was named in a whistle-blower’s complaint over Trump’s telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Volker, a veteran diplomat who took the envoy position as a volunteer, informed the State Department on Friday that he was leaving, said the two people, who asked for anonymity to discuss the matter.
Politics & Policy
Trump’s Defenders Have Plenty of Lame Excuses
No quid pro quo! It’s just politics! Democrats did it too!
You’re going to be seeing quotes from Federalist 65 a lot over the next few months. It’s the one where Alexander Hamilton explains that because impeachment “will seldom fail to agitate the passions of the whole community,” it will often “connect itself with the pre-existing factions, and will enlist all their animosities, partialities, influence, and interest on one side or on the other.” The outcome, thus, will depend as much on political strength as on truth.
Watching the agitated arguments over impeachment this week, you’d have to say that Hamilton nailed it. The passions he mentioned are leading political combatants on both sides of the issue astray. Representative Peter DeFazio, an Oregon Democrat who has been in Congress for 32 years, has decided that President Donald Trump is guilty of “treason.” Not according to the Constitution’s definition of the term, he isn’t.
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