President Trump Donald TrumpTrump lashes out after grand jury seated for New York criminal probe Schumer tees up vote on Jan. 6 commission bill Senators struggle to save Jan. 6 commission MORE’s approval rating dropped 3 percentage points following the release of special counsel Robert Mueller Robert (Bob) MuellerSenate Democrats urge Garland not to fight court order to release Trump obstruction memo Why a special counsel is guaranteed if Biden chooses Yates, Cuomo or Jones as AG Barr taps attorney investigating Russia probe origins as special counsel MORE’s report, marking the lowest level of 2019, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Friday. About 37 percent of adults surveyed said they approved of Trump’s performance in office, down from 40 percent in a similar poll conducted on April 15, before the Mueller report's release. According to Reuters, the figure was down from 43 percent in a poll conducted shortly after Attorney General William Barr Bill BarrWatchdog group suing for Trump obstruction memo blasts DOJ for trying to block release Biden DOJ to appeal court order to release Trump obstruction memo CNN reporter's phone and email records secretly obtained by Trump administration: report MORE delivered his summary of Mueller's report to Congress last month. ADVERTISEMENT The survey, conducted Thursday afternoon to Friday morning, is the first to measure the president’s standing with the public since the Justice Department released Mueller’s findings from his investigation into Russian election interference and possible obstruction of justice by Trump, Reuters noted. The poll came after Barr released a redacted version of Mueller's 400-plus-page report to Congress and the public on Thursday morning. Mueller declined to take a position in his report on whether Trump obstructed justice with the probe, though the document details 10 instances of potential obstruction of justice involving Trump. Investigators found "multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations." According to the poll, 50 percent of adults said they believed that "Trump or someone from his campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election," while 58 percent surveyed said they thought Trump "tried to stop investigations into Russian influence on his administration." The survey found that Americans remain divided over whether they think Trump should be impeached. Forty percent if those polled said Trump should be ousted, while 42 percent said the House should not begin impeachment proceedings. The poll’s findings showed sharp divisions along partisan lines, with Democrats responding more critically of Trump than Republicans. Seventy percent of those who said they were familiar with the Mueller report said it did not change their view of Trump or Russia’s involvement in the 2016 presidential election. Fifteen percent of those surveyed said they learned something that changed their view of Trump or the Russia investigation following the release of Mueller's report. The Reuters/Ipsos poll surveyed 1,005 adults ages 18 and older across the U.S. from Thursday afternoon to Friday morning, including 353 Democrats, 344 Republicans and 210 Independents. It has a credibility interval of 4 percentage points.<doc-sep>NEW YORK, NY - AUGUST 24: Trump Tower stands on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan on August 24, 2018 in New York City. Following new allegations over hush money that former Trump attorney Michael Cohen paid to an adult-film actress, the Manhattan district attorneyÕs office in New York City may seek criminal charges against the Trump Organization in the coming days. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images) WASHINGTON - NOVEMBER 08: US Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner (R-VA) remarks on the resignation of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at the US Capitol November 8, 2006 in Washington, DC. Warner said he supports President George W. Bush's nomination of former CIA Director Robert Gates for Secretary of Defense. Warner said he anticipates Gates' confirmation before the end of the year. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images) Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), joined by Senate Assistant Minority Leader John Thune (R-SD) (L) and Senate Minority Whip Roy Blunt (R-MO), speaks following a Senate Republican Policy luncheon at the Russell Senate Office Building on May 18, 2021 in Washington, DC. (CNN) — First things first: The theme song of the week is from the television show WKRP in Cincinnati. Poll of the week: A new Fox News poll finds President Donald Trump with a 45% approval rating and a 51% disapproval rating among voters. Last month, the same pollster gave him a 46% approval rating and 51% disapproval rating among voters. Fox News’ findings are in-line with the average poll, which showed the President’s ratings stayed steady after Attorney General William Barr released his summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s report. What’s the point: Mueller’s nearly two-year long investigation has given the news industry more than a few headlines. People were arrested, charged with crimes and sentenced to jail. Through it all, Trump’s approval rating has almost always stayed somewhere between 40% and 45% among voters. Does the release of the full redacted version of Mueller’s report on Thursday change that? It’s certainly plausible, but you’d be right to express skepticism. Back in March, before Barr’s memo was published, just 7% of voters said in a Fox News poll that something in the Mueller report could have a “strong” chance of changing their minds about Trump. The lack of a shift in public opinion about Trump after Barr’s memo was released is very much in-line with that. Voters said the Mueller report wouldn’t change their minds about Trump because the Russia investigation is simply put not a top issue for voters. In a CNN poll last month, zero respondents (0%) said it was their top issue for their 2020 vote when they were allowed to list any possible issue. This follows the 2018 midterm elections, in which fewer voters said the Russian investigation was an important issue to their vote than any of the issues listed in CNN’s poll. The Mueller report also seems unlikely to upend the Democratic race for president. This month, Monmouth University asked likely Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa to state their top one or two issues in determining their vote for the Democratic nomination. Voters could list anything they wanted. Again, zero respondents (0%) said the Russia investigation was a top issue for them. Voters seem most likely to rely on their partisan priors when reading the Mueller report. Currently, Trump sports a -10 point net approval rating (approval-disapproval) among voters in the average poll. That is, voters are 10 points more likely to take the anti-Trump position when it comes to whether they approve of the job he is doing as president. Now look at how voters responded in a CNN poll when asked about the Barr memo of the Mueller report, in regards to Trump and his campaign. A majority, 55%, said that “the President and his campaign have not been exonerated, but collusion could not be proven.” This was, of course, pretty close to what the Barr memo actually stated. Despite what was written in the memo, 45% agreed with the statement that “the President and his campaign have been exonerated of any collusion with Russia.” This statement was far closer to Trump’s own spin of the memo. In other words, Trump’s base seems pretty locked in, but so too does his opposition. Just like when it comes to his overall approval rating, voters were 10 points more likely to take the anti-Trump position on the Mueller report. Obviously, this time could be different. Trump received a lot of bad press on Thursday because of the redacted Mueller report. Just keep in mind that the vast majority of voters have already stated on the record that they plan to vote a certain way (either for or against Trump), regardless of what the report’s findings.<doc-sep>Overall, 22% of Americans think the special counsel Robert Mueller's final report on the Russia investigation vindicates President Donald Trump, while 33% think it implicated him, according to an INSIDER survey. Later in the survey, INSIDER inquired as to whether the respondent had, in fact, managed to skim the Mueller report yet. Most had not. The respondents who later indicated they had not in fact read the report were more likely to say it exonerated Trump. Visit BusinessInsider.com for more stories. An INSIDER survey conducted immediately after the redacted version of the special counsel Robert Mueller's final report on the Russia investigation came out found that 22% of respondents believed the 448-page document vindicated President Donald Trump. About 33% of respondents believed the report implicated him. The national survey was conducted on SurveyMonkey Audience beginning the same day on which the report was released and continued through April 19, finishing with 1,101 respondents. Given the instantaneous nature of the poll, the considerable length of the report and the steadfastness of the opinions of respondents, we were interested in a few details: Have these people actually read the report? While our first question asked people to assess the question of how Trump fares in the report, fourteen questions later, after an unrelated political survey, we asked "Have you read the Mueller report?" 31% said "no, and I don't currently plan to." 32% said "no, but I intend to." 24% said "yes, but I haven't yet completed it" 5% said "yes, in its entirety" 8% said "I don't know / understand" So while only 29% of respondents at least partially read the Mueller report, more than twice as many, 67%, drew a conclusion about whether the report vindicated or implicated the president. According to our data, 33% said they didn't know or hadn't read it. Let's set those honest respondents aside and look at the the 703 respondents who developed an opinion. Of the 398 respondents who later admitted they hadn't read it: 34% said it vindicated the president 21% said they were unsure 43% said it implicated him. For comparison, among those who said they read at least part of the report: 29% said it vindicated the president 14% said they were unsure 56% said they believed it implicated him. So among those who drew a conclusion, readers of the report were 13 percentage points more likely to believe this was bad for the president, while nonreaders were 5 percentage points more likely to believe it was good for him. Of those 398 opinionated respondents who later copped to not actually reading it, there was a selection of 168 respondents who said that they never would. Let's call them the too-long-didn't-reads, or "TL;DRs." What do the TL;DRs believe? 39% said it entirely or somewhat vindicated Trump, 7 points higher than the overall set. 24% didn't feel strongly either way, 5 points higher than the overall set. 36% said it entirely or somewhat implicated Trump, 12 points lower than the overall set. TL;DR: While the number of people who think the report implicates the president is 50% higher than the number who think it vindicated him, a majority of people who did not read the report and still have an opinion on it think it's really great for the president. SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weight its sample based on race or income. Total 1,101 respondents collected from the evening of April 18 through April 19, 2019, a margin of error plus or minus 3 percentage points with a 95% confidence level<doc-sep>President Donald Trump’s approval rating has taken a hit since the redacted Mueller report was released to the public on Thursday morning. According to a new poll by Reuters/Ipsos, Trump’s approval rating now stands at 37 percent, a 2019 low. The poll, which saw a three point drop from a similar poll taken just five days earlier, which showed the president with a 40 percent approval rating, was conducted Thursday afternoon to Friday morning, after U.S. Attorney General William Barr went out of his way to put the best face he could on Mueller’s report. Fifty percent of the adults polled said they believe that President Trump tried to stop the Mueller investigation. And fifty percent said they think Trump or someone from his campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election. When asked if the Mueller report has changed their minds, 68 percent said they were more likely to believe that President Trump or someone close to him broke the law. That’s up from 49 percent in March. So, with an unprecedented whirlwind of a week and his poll numbers tanking, Trump is hard at work trying to win back any public sentiment he’s lost by taking to Twitter early this morning and spewing nonsense: Despite the fact that the Mueller Report should not have been authorized in the first place & was written as nastily as possible by 13 (18) Angry Democrats who were true Trump Haters, including highly conflicted Bob Mueller himself, the end result is No Collusion, No Obstruction! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 20, 2019 And of course, by hitting the links.<doc-sep>
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The number of Americans who approve of President Donald Trump dropped by 3 percentage points to the lowest level of the year following the release of a special counsel report detailing Russian interference in the last U.S. presidential election, according to an exclusive Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll. The poll, conducted Thursday afternoon to Friday morning, is the first national survey to measure the response from the American public after the U.S. Justice Department released Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 448-page report that recounted numerous occasions in which Trump may have interfered with the investigation. According to the poll, 37 percent of adults in the United States approved of Trump’s performance in office, down from 40 percent in a similar poll conducted on April 15 and matching the lowest level of the year. That is also down from 43 percent in a poll conducted shortly after U.S. Attorney General William Barr circulated a summary of the report in March. In his report, Mueller said his investigation did not establish that the Trump campaign had coordinated with Russians. However, investigators did find “multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations.” While Mueller ultimately decided not to charge Trump with a crime, he also said that the investigation did not exonerate the president, either. The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English throughout the United States. It gathered responses from 1,005 adults, including 924 who were familiar with the Mueller report. It has a credibility interval, a measure of precision, of 4 percentage points. To see the entire Reuters/Ipsos poll, click here: tmsnrt.rs/2DjEq3R SHARP SPLIT The poll found that 50 percent of Americans agreed that “Trump or someone from his campaign worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election,” and 58 percent agreed that the president “tried to stop investigations into Russian influence on his administration.” Forty percent said they thought Trump should be impeached, while 42 percent said he should not. The poll responses were sharply split along party lines, with Democrats much more critical of Trump than his fellow Republicans. The Mueller investigation had previously charged 34 other people and three Russian entities, netting convictions or guilty pleas from several Trump associates including former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, White House national security adviser Michael Flynn and longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen. So far, the report does not appear to have convinced many to change their opinions about the president’s conduct during a bitter presidential campaign, whether his inner circle improperly engaged with Russian agents, or if he tried to interfere with federal investigators afterward. Among those respondents who said they were familiar with the Mueller report, 70 percent said the report had not changed their view of Trump or Russia’s involvement in the U.S. presidential race. Only 15 percent said they had learned something that changed their view of Trump or the Russia investigation, and a majority of those respondents said they were now more likely to believe that “Trump or someone close to him broke the law.” (For a 'Link to Mueller report' click here) (For a graphic on 'A closer look at Mueller report redactions' click tmsnrt.rs/2VSx7HZ)