An increasingly unhinged President Trump pretends to aim a gun at reporters he spoke with this week in Washington D.C. He threatened to wipe out “an entire civilization” by stepping up his bombing of Iran’s civilian infrastructure including bridges and power sorces, all in direct violation of international law.| Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
WASHINGTON—Only 14 months into his current term, just over half of Americans, in a new poll commissioned by two groups opposing President Trump’s war on Iran and other policies, say lawmakers should impeach him now, only 14 months into his current term. That 52%-40% margin includes one of every seven Republicans, adds John Bonifaz, who ran the survey for veteran progressive pollster Celinda Lake’s firm.
“This is an unprecedented result this early in a presidential term,” Bonifaz said. Even considering this term as Trump’s second, voters have turned against him far earlier than they turned against the only other two-term president who saw a majority for impeachment, Republican Richard Nixon in 1974.
Remarks like the one Trump made this morning, declaring that he was about to “destroy an entire civilization” in Iran, “never to see it emerging again,” by stepping up the bombing of that country, have apparently played no small part in the turn against the president who has been lacing his usual barrage of tweets with obscenities lately.
The public appears to be ahead of Congress on impeaching Trump. Impeachment needs only a simple majority in the House, but a two-thirds vote in the Republican-run Senate. Right now, the votes aren’t there on either side of Capitol Hill.
During and after Trump’s 2017-21 first term, the House impeached him twice. The Senate failed to convict him twice.
The second Trump impeachment, for inciting and directing the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol invasion, insurrection, and attempted coup d’etat, won 57 senators, a majority, including seven Republicans. But it occurred after Trump left office, and fell short the two-thirds required.
Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, one of Trump’s most outspoken foes, tried twice last year to impeach Trump. Green offered privileged resolutions demanding Trump’s impeachment for a variety of crimes. He lost both times.
The survey of 790 registered voters asked two simple questions, Bonifaz explained in a Zoom press conference on April 6. One was straight up whether the respondents wanted Trump impeached now or not. The response was 52% yes, 40% no. The survey had a 3.9% plus or minus margin of error.
The lead group sponsoring the survey, “Impeach Trump. Again,” lists 27 grounds on its website for impeaching him, many of them for constitutional violations, abuse of power, or both. The other sponsor is Free Speech For People. But in asking the question, Lake’s pollsters mentioned only two reasons: Trump’s Iran War and his unleashing of violent ICE agents in the nation’s cities. Both break the Constitution, legal experts say.
The other question was the overall approval of Trump’s job performance. The results tracked each other, for Democrats (5% approval, 92% disapproval), Republicans (81% for-16% against), and independents (34% for-56% against).
Bonifaz noted one big difference in the results, in addition to the fact that they’re so early in Trump’s term. Nixon and his top aides underwent congressional investigations, a trail of his campaign finance chair Maurice Stans, open congressional hearings, the revelation of his White House tapes, and ultimately House Judiciary Committee impeachment charges on a bipartisan vote before the public turned against him. Then the tapes disclosed OKd Watergate and ordered its cover-up.
This time, there was no such preparation, Bonifaz said.
“But we’re in a very polarized political environment, and generally you see that pattern’s been true for a long, long time,” he added.
The public mood has hardened on both sides. Of the 84% of Democrats polled who favor impeachment, all but six percent strongly favor it. Eight percent oppose impeaching Trump.
Four-fifths (81%) of Republicans oppose impeaching Trump, while one-seventh (14%) favor it. All but four percent of the GOP foes of impeachment strongly oppose it. Nine percent of GOP impeachment backers are apparently “never Trumpers,” strongly favoring impeaching him, but 5% aren’t as rabid.
Independents swing in favor of impeachment by a 55%-34% margin, and have the largest slice of undecided respondents (10%). And 12% of the 55% who support impeaching Trump “are not so strongly” for it, polltakers reported. Only 3% of the 34% of independents who oppose impeaching Trump have milder feelings about it.
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