President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before boarding Air Force One at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, New Jersey on Aug. 15, 2019. (Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)
Less than 24 hours after House Democrats announced an inquiry into impeaching President Donald Trump, a daily tracking poll shows that a majority of Americans approve of the job he’s doing.
A Sept. 25 poll from Rasmussen Reports, which the president often cites, showed that 51 percent of likely American voters approve of the job Trump is doing while 47 percent disapprove.
The poll also found that 35 percent strongly approve and 41 percent strongly disapprove of the job he’s doing.
Rasmussen noted that at the same time during former President Barack Obama’s first term, he had a 44 percent approval rating.
Another poll from Quinnipiac University, conducted before House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced the impeachment inquiry on Tuesday, found on Wednesday that a majority of Americans, or 57 percent, did not support impeachment proceedings.
The Quinnipiac poll was carried out before the White House released a transcript of a phone call between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. It found that 37 percent of likely American voters supported impeaching the president.
Pelosi, in announcing the inquiry, claimed that the “president has admitted to asking the president of Ukraine to take actions which would benefit him politically.” She added that Trump has “revealed dishonorable facts of the president’s betrayal of his oath of office, betrayal of national security and betrayal of the integrity of our elections.”
Last month, before the existence of a phone call between Trump-Zelensky call was reported, a Monmouth University poll found that 59 percent of voters were against impeaching Trump while 35 percent backed the proceedings.
The White House released a transcript of the call on Wednesday after Trump was accused by an anonymous person of improperly pressuring Zelensky to probe former Vice President Joe Biden. That person appeared to have a political bias in favor of a rival of Trump’s, the inspector general found.
“The other thing, there’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great,” Trump said in the transcript. “Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it … It sounds horrible to me.”
The Department of Justice, meanwhile, said Trump didn’t ask Attorney General William Barr to contact Ukraine following the call.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, greets media prior his meeting with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian in Kiev, Ukraine on May 30, 2019. (Efrem Lukatsky/AP, The Canadian Press)
“The President has not spoken with the Attorney General about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former Vice President Biden or his son,” DOJ spokesperson Kerri Kupec said in the Sept. 25 statement to The Epoch Times. “The President has not asked the Attorney General to contact Ukraine—on this or any other matter. The Attorney General has not communicated with Ukraine—on this or any other subject. Nor has the Attorney General discussed this matter, or anything relating to Ukraine, with Rudy Giuliani.”
Kupec added Barr was notified about Trump’s call with Zelensky “several weeks after the call took place, when the Department of Justice learned of a potential referral.”
Epoch Times reporter Janita Kan contributed to this report.
Jack Phillips is a breaking news reporter with 15 years experience who started as a local New York City reporter. Having joined The Epoch Times' news team in 2009, Jack was born and raised near Modesto in California's Central Valley. Follow him on X: https://twitter.com/jackphillips5
