Poll: Nation is split on Trump impeachment

WASHINGTON — One day after the U.S. House of Representatives impeached outgoing President Donald Trump for inciting last week's insurrection at the Capitol, a new NBC News poll finds that American voters are divided on his impeachment and removal from office, with most Republicans standing firmly behind the president.

Overall, 50 percent of voters nationwide say Trump should be impeached and removed from office, while 48 percent are opposed.

By party, 89 percent of Democratic voters believe Trump should be impeached and removed from office, compared with just 8 percent of Republican voters. Independents are split, with 45 percent in support and 53 percent in opposition.

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On the brink

Barring his resignation, which being honest, nobody believes is going to happen; sometime tomorrow Donald Trump is going to become the first President of the United States to be impeached twice. The impeachment vote is not expected to be close, nor is it expected to be a party line vote. A handful of Republicans have already announced their intention to vote for the impeachment. Others may join. 

Multiple sources have been reporting for days that Republicans in both houses of Congress blame Trump for the attempted violent insurrection of January 6th. Those sources state that some members are "incandescent" in their fury with the president. This evening, in what is almost certainly a strategically timed leak, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is reported to believe the president committed impeachable offenses and that he is pleased by the prospect of Trump's impeachment, seeing it as an opportunity to purge Trump and his more nutty supporters from the party. McConnell is widely regarded as one of the craftiest Majority Leaders since LBJ. It is also generally understood that there is no love lost between him and Trump. Adding to the political calculation, Jonathan Martin, a New York Times reporter tweeted tonight that as many as twenty GOP senators were open to convicting the president before McConnell's timely leak. The leak from sources close to McConnell also showed up about an hour or so after Liz Cheney, the # 3 in the House GOP caucus announced she will vote to impeach Trump in a scathing statement. And lastly it appears that the leadership in the House has told the GOP caucus that members may vote their conscience. Between them, both Cheney and McConnell seem to be signaling their support for the president's impeachment. It now remains to be seen how many Republicans will risk the wrath of Trump's more die hard supporters in tomorrow's vote. 

Likely adding to the threat to his own presidency, Mr. Trump today denied any responsibility for inciting last Wednesday's insurrectionist riot. This, less than a day after House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy tried to calm the anger of GOP Congressmen/women by telling them he had personally talked to Trump and that the president had acknowledged he had some responsibility for last week's attack. Trump coupled his denial of culpability with some fairly menacing language hinting at more trouble if they pursue impeachment. 

Impeachment II

The latest is that Speaker Pelosi has threatened Trump with the appalling distinction of becoming the only president to be impeached twice unless he immediately resigns. And making matters worse (for Trump) is that the impeachment may not be a purely symbolic act. It is possible that Trump could be impeached and tried even after leaving office. It has actually happened before. In 1876 William Belknap, President Grant's Secretary of War was impeached and tried AFTER he had resigned for corruption. 

Impeach Him Again (updated)

The president should be impeached and removed from office. If at all possible this should be done tomorrow. Normal procedures, for hearings in the House and a lengthy trial in the Senate should be set aside. Only a single article is needed. The charge should be sedition. It can be drafted tonight, debated in the morning and voted out of the House by lunchtime. The Senate can suspend its rules and move to summary judgement. Allow for four hours of debate and then call the vote. 

I don't know if he has become mentally unhinged as some of his close supporters are privately saying, and I don't care. He has violated his oath of office in a manner so brazen that if he is not removed, I am not sure the country can survive the precedent.

Update: The likelihood of removing Trump before the end of his term appears to be going downhill very rapidly. The Democratic majority leader has announced that the House will not sit again until after the inauguration. And with the resignation of Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao it seems unlikely the cabinet will act to invoke the 25th amendment. 

Update II: Maybe Stenny Hoyer spoke too soon. Speaker Pelosi has now threatened swift impeachment if Trump is not removed via the 25th amendment. 

Trump is in trouble

I noted in an earlier post regarding the rising level of support for impeachment that the president would be in trouble if his support from within the GOP began to erode. That now appears to be happening.

According to a new poll, support for the impeachment inquiry has jumped to 58% with 49% supporting his removal from office. Translated into plain English; a solid majority of Americans believe there is legitimate reason to at least discuss removing the President of the United States from office on the basis of corruption and abuse of power. Near half believe he should in fact be removed.

But the bombshell in these numbers is that a statistically significant number within his own party appear to have finally had enough. A quarter or more of Republicans support the inquiry and almost one in five want him removed. Let's set aside for now the actual prospects of his removal from office, which I continue to think are very low. Unless these numbers change, drastically, Trump's chances of re-election now appear to be going from poor to somewhere near 'I'm not seeing how he can pull it off.'

The bottom line is that Trump's can't win reelection with these numbers. He has to claw back support from within his own party or he will get buried in the general election. I won't say it's impossible. He's pulled off some crazy political upsets before. But when you have a large chunk of your own party supporting your impeachment...

Source

Polls suggest public support for impeachment growing

They are not yet at 50%, but in the space of roughly a week, support for impeachment has jumped from the high 30% range into the 45%+  range with some variation depending on who was doing the polling and how the questions were worded. But in every case support for the president is dropping and the number favoring impeachment has risen. In particular the president should be worried about erosion of support from within his own party. If he loses more than 10% of self identifying Republicans he will be in deep trouble going into the general election. Unlike in 2016 when Democrats were not very enthusiastic about their candidate and many stayed home, every indication suggests they will be highly motivated in 2020. Trump can't afford to lose many of his supporters.

Details.

The People vs. Donald J. Trump: The case for impeachment

The presidential oath of office contains 35 words and one core promise: to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” Since virtually the moment Donald J. Trump took that oath two years ago, he has been violating it.

He has repeatedly put his own interests above those of the country. He has used the presidency to promote his businesses. He has accepted financial gifts from foreign countries. He has lied to the American people about his relationship with a hostile foreign government. He has tolerated cabinet officials who use their position to enrich themselves.

To shield himself from accountability for all of this — and for his unscrupulous presidential campaign — he has set out to undermine the American system of checks and balances. He has called for the prosecution of his political enemies and the protection of his allies. He has attempted to obstruct justice. He has tried to shake the public’s confidence in one democratic institution after another, including the press, federal law enforcement and the federal judiciary.

The unrelenting chaos that Trump creates can sometimes obscure the big picture. But the big picture is simple: The United States has never had a president as demonstrably unfit for the office as Trump. And it’s becoming clear that 2019 is likely to be dominated by a single question: What are we going to do about it?

The easy answer is to wait — to allow the various investigations of Trump to run their course and ask voters to deliver a verdict in 2020. That answer has one great advantage. It would avoid the national trauma of overturning an election result. Ultimately, however, waiting is too dangerous. The cost of removing a president from office is smaller than the cost of allowing this president to remain.

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