Ukrainegate

Harvard Harris Poll Debrief with Mark Penn and Bob Cusack

As the Ukraine situation was developing, we managed to get here some of the earliest data, just before the full release of all the materials and of the whistleblower complaint. We were able to capture what the American public was thinking. First, we asked them have you heard anything involving issues related to the investments of Joe Biden's son? About half had. We asked them, in contrast, have they heard about President Trump and Guilliani wanting the Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden and his son over these investments? 58% had. So actually, pretty good recognition that Joe Biden's son and Joe Biden might have an issue in here, which is what the President Trump has been pushing. Larger recognition of what President Trump and Guilliani have been doing to push Ukraine on the subject.Do you think it was appropriate or inappropriate for President Trump to raise questions about investigating Joe Biden with the President of the Ukraine? No. Inappropriate, 58% went that way. They don't even think Rudy Guilliani as the President's lawyer should be raising these questions. 56% say that it was inappropriate. Then we asked was it right for someone in the intelligence community, right, to leak the details and file this kind of report as they were leaving government? 53% said they thought that was inappropriate. And when asked whether or not they thought the former intelligence official was trying to expose a problem of playing politics to hurt Trump, 50% thought that they were trying to play politics to hurt Trump. 50% expose the real problem. So there's a lot of cynicism and doubt towards everybody here. The President, Guilliani, concern about the Biden issue, concern about the so-called whistleblower.Do you think that the Trump administration should send Congress the full complaint and the text of his call with the President of the Ukraine or hold it back on the grounds they need to remain private? Here, the President made the decision to get all the material out, and 65% of the public said that's exactly what they wanted to see happen, and it did. And then we asked two slightly different questions. Do you think that just asking the President of the Ukraine for help in investigating the actions of Joe Biden and his son, if that occurred, would be an impeachable offense or not impeachable? 55% said not impeachable. 45% impeachable. We generally have seen people wanting to impeach President Trump at around 40% all throughout the Mueller investigation. So 45 represents a slightly higher number, but 55% is also a clear rejection, even if that's the fact.Now, changing the phrasing to do you think that pressuring the President, instead of asking, of the Ukraine for help, just that difference in investigating the actions of Biden moves to 50-50, and that doesn't mean overwhelming support or bipartisan support for impeachment, but it means significant support for impeachment. So this whole issue of whether or not it was asking and raising the topic or pressuring and holding up is an important one and also one that one side the Democrats will want to push to pressuring, and the other side, the President, will want to push to asking. And people will judge for themselves, but it's still not an overwhelming number or consensus for removal from office. And these numbers will be watched as the story unfolds.Now, on the other hand, the story that's been pushed here, do you think that in asking the President of the Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, Trump was trying to expose a real problem, 47, play politics, 53. Again, not an overwhelming answer on either side.

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