Researchers surveyed voters between 12 and 14 May – after Mr Trump's surprising dismissal of FBI director James Comey, but before revelations from the Washington Post that the president had reportedly shared classified information with Russian officials.
Mr Comey's firing sparked concern from both Democrats and Republicans concerning the FBI's ongoing investigation into possible Trump campaign ties to Russia. Mr Trump's approval rating slumped to its lowest point in two months in the wake of the firing, according to Gallup daily tracking. The majority of Americans – 57 per cent – now say they are not happy with Mr Trump's performance.
Only 37 per cent of Americans say they support Mr Comey's firing, compared to 48 per cent who oppose it.
The biggest names involved in the Trump-Russia investigation
At least 12 Democratic members of Congress have called for Mr Trump's impeachment since his inauguration. Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe has also argued for such a move, writing in the Washington Post that the firing of Mr Comey marks an "obvious effort to interfere with a probe involving national security matters".
Robert Reich, former labour secretary under President Bill Clinton, has argued that Mr Comey's firing amounts to an "impeachable offence".
"The question is no longer whether there are grounds to impeach Donald Trump," he wrote in a column for Newsweek. "It is when enough Republicans will put their loyalty to America ahead of their loyalty to their party."
Public Policy Polling found voters' discontent extends to Republicans in Congress, where Democrats have an 11-point lead in a generic Congressional ballot. Democrats lead Republicans by an average of almost seven points across 15 national polls. according to RealClearPolitics.
The polling firm attributes this downswing in Republican popularity to the widely disliked American Health Care Act, which narrowly passed a House vote this month. Only a quarter of voters say they support the bill, compared to 52 per cent who oppose it.
The bill is expected to undergo substantial changes when it moves to a Senate vote.
Public Policy Polling was ranked by the Wall Street Journal as one of the most accurate polling firms in 2008, but – like many national polls – significantly underestimated Mr Trump's lead in key swing states in the 2016 election.
In another development, the Washington Post reported that a current White House official is a "significant person of interest" in the investigation into alleged links between the Trump campaign and Russia.
It quoted unnamed sources familiar with the investigation as saying it was someone "close to the president" but they would not identify them further. The White House has denied there was collusion between the campaign and any "foreign entity".
Evidence mounts - Anthony Zurcher, BBC North America reporter
Donald Trump called the ongoing Russia investigation a "witch hunt", but reporters have just found a boiling cauldron and a closet full of broomsticks.
The key takeaway from these latest blockbuster stories - there have been so many this week it's hard to keep count - is there's now further evidence of Mr Trump's intent to dismiss FBI Director James Comey because of his handling of the ongoing Russia investigation.
That this revelation came as a result of a meeting with Russian officials, one of whom is a key figure in the investigation, is just the icing on the cake.
What's more, it now appears this investigation has expanded to involve an individual who currently holds a senior post within the White House, not just an ex-aide (Michael Flynn) or campaign official (Paul Manafort). If that's the case, it's only a matter of time before subpoenas are issued and the entire administration adopts a bunker mentality.
Donald Trump reportedly told his Russian guests that firing Mr Comey had relieved the "great pressure" his administration was under because of the Russia investigation.
That, it turns out, was wishful thinking in the extreme.
"I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job," Mr Trump told the Russian officials, the Times reported.
"I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off."
But, warning that leaks were undermining national security, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said: "By grandstanding and politicising the investigation into Russia's actions, James Comey created unnecessary pressure on our ability to engage and negotiate with Russia.
"The investigation would have always continued, and obviously, the termination of Comey would not have ended it."
The BBC's Gary O'Donoghue, in Washington, says the White House has chosen to interpret the president's words as relating to the national interest rather than to himself.
The summary was drawn from a formal account of last week's meeting between Mr Trump, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and the Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak, who is at the centre of many of the controversial contacts between the Trump campaign and senior Russian officials.
Mr Trump had fired Mr Comey the evening before.
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.🖖
news coming out now about a SENIOR official ,unnamed so far, actually at the White House who is being investigated AND VP Pence's name is popping up over an d over,and NOT in a good way he's now being implicated
“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” Gary Kasparov
In the White House game of thrones, where senior administration officials fend off adversaries at every turn while vying for power and prominence, Mike Pence has been a relatively quiet player.
The vice-president is always in the background, often looking over Donald Trump's shoulder with an approving nod as the president delivers a speech or signs yet another executive order. When it comes to engaging in the bare-knuckle brawling that has played itself out through anonymous sources and well-timed insider leaks, however, the vice-president and his associates have largely stayed out of the fray.
Thursday night, then, was quite unusual. Two major US media outlets - CNN and NBC News - ran articles, complete with quotes from anonymous White House sources, distancing the vice-president from the current chaos in the administration and the running controversy over possible Trump campaign ties to the Russian government during the 2016 US presidential election.
"We certainly knew we needed to be prepared for the unconventional," an unnamed Pence aide told CNN's Elizabeth Landers, but "not to this extent".
The proximate cause for the concern among the vice-president's camp was a New York Times article earlier this week reporting that Michael Flynn, Mr Trump's prominent campaign surrogate and short-lived national security adviser, had in early January informed the presidential transition team - then headed by Mr Pence - that he was under investigation for his ties to the Turkish government.
In March Mr Pence denied any knowledge of Mr Flynn's Turkish ties before they were made public earlier that month.
A "source close to the administration" told NBC that Mr Pence stands by his comments and he was not told of Mr Flynn's Turkish connections.
"That's an egregious error - and it has to be intentional," the source said. "It's either malpractice or intentional, and either are unacceptable."
Complicating matters for the vice-president is that this is not the first time he has taken the White House line, only to be undercut by subsequent revelations.
Just last week he asserted, repeatedly, that the president decided to fire FBI Director James Comey based on a memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein.
One day later the president himself told an interviewer that he knew he was going to terminate the law enforcement chief before the memo was even written.
Mr Pence was also part of the White House efforts in January to push back against reports that Mr Flynn discussed US sanctions on Russia with that nation's ambassador to the US, Sergei Kislyak - allegations that were later proven to be true.
Mr Flynn was fired, the White House said, for misleading the vice-president on the matter.
If Thursday night's story is any indication, the vice-president may now be trying to put some distance between himself and an administration that has made a habit of leaving him out on a limb.
If the Trump presidency is truly in trouble, and this week's appointment of Special Counsel Robert Mueller is a dark storm cloud on the horizon, this could be evidence that the vice-president is contemplating a future after Mr Trump. He's certainly not abandoning ship, but he's familiarising himself with where the lifeboats are stored.
If so, he's not the only one. Politico ran a story earlier this week about conservatives - on the record and off - who were "hinting" that a President Pence would be a welcome reprieve from the drama of the Trump presidency.
To get there, of course, Mr Trump would have to resign or be removed from office, leaving the vice-president as next in line for the job.
Such speculation is decidedly premature, of course, but then there was another tidbit this week that has stoked the flames.
Mr Pence, according to Federal Election Commission filings, has started a committee to collect political donations.
A source within the vice-president's office told NBC that the "Great American Committee", as it's named, will allow Mr Pence to cover travel expenses and support Republicans candidates in upcoming elections.
It's a move, however, that none of the vice-president's predecessors ever made - and has been a traditional opening step for past presidential candidates.
Democrats have also taken note of Mr Pence's manoeuvres and are adjusting their fire accordingly.
"Mike Pence was a major player in the scandals enveloping the Trump administration, and no amount of spinning and leaking to reporters from him and his team can change that fact," writes Oliver Willis of the liberal website Shareblue.
There's no telling what Mr Trump, who prizes loyalty above all else, thinks of all this.
Reports are he's been angered in the past by aides, such as top White House adviser Steve Bannon, who have stepped too far into the limelight.
He famously said of Mr Comey in January that he had "become more famous than me" - then later justified sacking him by saying he was a "showboat" and a "grandstander".
There is of course one key difference between Mr Pence and anyone else working in the Trump administration.
The vice-president got his job through the will of American voters (or, at least, the Electoral College).
Mr Trump can't fire him.
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.🖖
As a thought experiment I wonder if it would be in the Democrat's interest to impeach Trump.
Right now Trump seems to be making such a mess of things and as such has difficulty in getting his agenda passed. If Pence were to be in Trump's place would he have a smoother working relationship with the Republicans in Congress and Senate, and so be able to advance the general Republican line?
Will we see two hashtags #republicansforimpeachemt and #democratsagainstimpeachment ?
ps. I heard a new conspiracy theory yesterday. Trump is a plant of The Washington Post and CBS and other news outlets to help increase their circulation with all the stories about the outrageous things he says and does.
Dang, give it a rest folks! What happens when Trump is cleared or the "investigation" goes on for 3 years. Clinton was re-elected and White Water was going on!
Liberals just get a hold of yourselves. Many of us did not like Obama but we took it! Grow Up!
I tend to agree with Flumom. Many people are saying Trump has made a mess of things and has screwed things up, but I'm yet to see anything he has done wrong as of yet. Keep in mind that crazy Hillary is running again in 2020, and as apart of her campaigning that has begun, she is not only spearheading "the resistance" and dividing this country, but she is behind most problems with a lot of misinformation. I voted Trump, but I won't follow anyone off a cliff. If he messes up, I will personally be the first to call him out on BS. But so far, haven't seen it. I also voted for Obama his first term, and his second term he turned to crap.
I beg to differ, Boss. I think he has been caught out lying - big time, repeatedly.
I think sacking Comey was the right thing to do: but his timing, you must admit, looks terrible.
White house business is far too important to indulge in nepotisim or repeated tweets. Tweets?- songbirds could not keep up! 'And The White House looks like a family business.
I agree with you about Hilary though.
Heigh ho!.................'Rock and a hard place.
How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving.
I don't think anyone in public office should be on any social media,it demeans that office,we can only hope it does get better,trump has not instilled any confidence ,he seems to change his mind and stories at the drop of a hat people down here think he's a Joke,just hope he starts earning the respect of the world....
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.🖖
now being reported White House lawyers are reading up on IMPEACHMENT
Trump actively looking for "outside counsel"
European journalists with more info on Trump's shady business dealings in Europe
Trump looking for ways to shut down the Mueller investigation
Rachel Maddow did some fantastic investigative journalism and has now identified one of the Russians involved in all this and guess who he was talking to ?
and now Pence has been caught lying multiple times and will be the TARGET of an investigation as will Jared Kushner
Trump,not even in office 4 months and already members of his own party are talking IMPEACHMENT
SENIOR White House official (name unknown) now being investigated
questions
1)why was ANYONE from Trump's campaign emailing,telephoning and actually visiting Russians in Moscow ??? 2)WHO exactly were they talking to ??? 3)why did ALL of Trump's people LIE about this ? and the ALL LIED Lendowski,Page,Banafort,Kushner ???
“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” Gary Kasparov
Trying to look at it from the point of view of other Republicans: It seems to me that, distancing oneself from Trump BEFORE impeachment helps to preserve one's own reputation. Therefore, joining the calls for same is a safety-measure and not a specific indication of perceived guilt.
I think him guilty, but that is just my opinion. I have long believed that the way to tell if ANY politician is lying is to check if their lips or pen are moving.
There does have to be at least a solid chance of guilt before your own party's members start calling out for charges, but this is not a certainty. Everyone, even Trump, deserves to be innocent until PROVEN guilty.
How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving.
I have been doing some research into Trump "behind closed doors" his upbringing,his life before becoming a politician etc and if you think his public persona is bad you ain't seen NOTHING yet
he is a real piece of work let me tell you a real piece of NASTY work without question one of the most dysfunctional human being you will ever come across he is,in my opinion,from what I have come across so far a VERY psychologically DAMAGED individual
it absolutely terrifies me that he is the leader of the free world what have we done???
“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” Gary Kasparov
first Carter Page refuses to testify and now Flynn
yeah nothing to see here move along
“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” Gary Kasparov
I thought this site was for flu/disease news and outbreaks. I guess I'm shocked by the amount of political agendas on here that have NOTHING to do with avian flu or ebola, etc. Please give it a rest. There are plenty of other sites to go to to read/vent about politics. Unless Trump is now spreading Ebola, I really don't see this stuff belongs on here. I realize there are no "rules" to posting, but I would appreciate being able to get relevant information on diseases - not people's opinions on what the Trumps are doing today.
You are correct that politics are not the main purpose of this site. But, we do look at other threats as well. (I guess, we are all closet preppers and some see Trump as a threat.) So, that explains the politics which stem from our perceptions of threats.
That aside,this whole thread probably belongs in "The Dungeon" and you are well within your rights to complain.
We could consign the thread there if enough people want it moved.
Any other takers?
How do you tell if a politician is lying? His lips or pen are moving.
Four months in, it's fair to say the Trump administration is in trouble. A special counsel has been appointed to look into potential criminal wrongdoing by the President and members of his team. Congressional hearings are ramping up, with fired FBI director James Comey slated to offer public testimony later this week. Americans have heard more about Watergate in the past two weeks than any time since Richard Nixon resigned.
Talk of impeachment, while rampant, is premature. But we can start to draw some conclusions about Trump's shortcomings as commander-in-chief. He ran on his business and leadership credentials, promising to run the country like he ran his real estate empire. It turns out that Trump's leadership skills are better suited to reality television than the White House. In fact, the failures of Trump's first few months suggest the very notion that the government should be run by a CEO should be retired.
Before his presidential run, Trump's claim to fame was his ability to hire and fire people. His hit television show The Apprentice was a jazzed-up job interview; his tagline "You're fired" a decisive dismissal. So it's ironic that the future of his presidency may hang on his decision to hire one man and fire another.
When Trump teamed with Michael Flynn, a retired general who had been pushed out of the Obama administration, the partnership raised eyebrows. After all, Flynn had a penchant for the conspiratorial, tweeting that Hillary Clinton was involved in a paedophile ring and arguing that Democrats were trying to institute sharia law in America. But it was the decision to make Flynn the national security advisor that raised serious concerns about Trump's ability to hire the right people.
Recent revelations show the choice of Flynn was even more alarming than it initially seemed. At the time Flynn was appointed, Trump and others in the administration knew he was a foreign agent working for Turkey and that he was under federal investigation. Trump appointed him anyway. It's hard to imagine a more willfully negligent hiring decision.
But if hiring Flynn was a dereliction of duty, firing James Comey was an abuse of power. FBI directors are appointed to 10-year terms as a way of insulating them from electoral politics. The president has a right to fire the director – Bill Clinton fired an FBI director caught up in a series of financial and ethical scandals – but the reason for the firing matters. A lot.
No one has seemed particularly surprised that Trump would try to obstruct the FBI's investigation. But they do seem surprised that he so readily admitted it. Understanding Trump's CEO-like approach to politics helps clarify why he did. Trump defines leadership as calling the shots. The power to hire and fire, to ignore aides' advice, to be the decider – that's what it means to be the boss.The administration has cycled through a number of possible excuses for Comey's firing, but it was Trump who twice explained why he did it: Comey's persistence in investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election. And firing the FBI director in order to stop an investigation cuts remarkably close to obstruction of justice.
And in business, that's more or less true. Getting rid of a problem employee is one way of getting rid of a problem. Fire Flynn, fire Comey, and the Russia issue goes away.
In government, it doesn't work that way. The inspector can't be bought off. The case can't be settled out of court. You can't declare bankruptcy and cut your losses. Bad decisions have serious consequences.
Again and again during his time in office, Trump has run up against the limits of his art-of-the-deal approach to politics in a way that suggests a CEO makes a poor commander-in-chief. In addition to his other shortcomings, Trump doesn't know the politics business. He doesn't know the rules, doesn't know the people, doesn't know the institutions. Trying to build support for healthcare repeal, Trump managed to alienate his allies because he didn't understand the relationships or interests involved.
People succeed in business because they understand an industry. They master a subject, learn the difference between theory and practice, and then they roll the dice, taking risks that shatter expectations.
And while Trump's break-the-rules approach appeals to many of his supporters, the rules he's breaking come with heavy penalties. The investigations into Russia's interference in the election have, thus far, yielded no evidence of collusion with Trump.
Yet Trump has created a situation in which the cover-up is the crime. Every account of the unfolding crisis within the administration indicates that neither Trump nor his advisers understood that firing Comey could have political and legal consequences. That's the problem with outsiders running government. You need some insiders to tell you where the landmines are.
The broad frustration with political insiders and ossified establishments is understandable. But the Trump administration shows us what happens when specific expertise is replaced by general ignorance. It goes badly, both for the president and the people he's there to serve.
Nicole Hemmer is a Fairfax Media columnist.
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.🖖
"Donald
Trump was reportedly so upset about James Comey’s testimony before the
Senate Intelligence Committee that he sought out senior intelligence
officials and tried to pressure them to ”publicly deny the existence of
any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election”. From the Washington
Post:"
"
Trump made separate appeals to the director of
national intelligence, Daniel Coats, and to Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the
director of the National Security Agency, urging them to publicly deny
the existence of any evidence of collusion during the 2016 election.
Coats and Rogers refused to comply with the requests, which they both
deemed to be inappropriate, according to two current and two former
officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private
communications with the president
Like Comey, Rogers took and shared extensive notes on the conversation:
Trump’s conversation with Rogers was documented contemporaneously in an
internal memo written by a senior NSA official, according to the
officials. It is unclear if a similar memo was prepared by the Office of
the Director of National Intelligence to document Trump’s conversation
with Coats. Officials said such memos could be made available to both
the special counsel now overseeing the Russia investigation and
congressional investigators, who might explore whether Trump sought to
impede the FBI’s work.
At a minimum, the case for obstructing justice appears to be getting stronger by the minute. "
“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” Gary Kasparov
Mr. Flynn, who resigned 24 days into the Trump administration, told
investigators in February 2016 that he had received no income from
foreign companies and had only “insubstantial contact” with foreign
nationals, according to the letter. In fact, Mr. Flynn had sat two
months earlier beside President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia at a Moscow
gala for RT, the Kremlin-financed television network, which paid Mr.
Flynn more than $45,000 to attend the event and give a separate speech.
His failure to make those disclosures and his apparent attempt to
mislead the Pentagon could put Mr. Flynn in further legal jeopardy.
Intentionally lying to federal investigators is a felony punishable by
up to five years in prison. Separately, he also faces legal questions
over failing to properly register as a foreign agent for lobbying he did
last year on behalf of Turkey while advising the Trump campaign, which
is also a felony. [...]
It now appears that Mr. Flynn was not
forthcoming about foreign payments during two separate reviews of his
security clearance: the standard five-year renewal that took place early
last year after he was already retired, and a more recent and more
thorough review that took place after he was named national security
adviser, a role in which he had access to almost all American
intelligence." ""We need to know what the President, Vice President,
White House Counsel and other top officials knew about General Flynn—and
when they knew it.”
WHAT DID THEY KNOW AND WHEN DID THEY KNOW IT ? shades of Watergate don't ya think ?
ticky tocky ticky tocky Mr Trump
you ARE going DOWN
“The point of modern propaganda isn’t only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth.” Gary Kasparov
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