Show an ad over header. AMP  

Axios-Ipsos poll: More than half of Americans want Trump removed

14 January 2021
 Dan Ackermann
Data: Ipsos/Axios survey; Chart: Axios Visuals

A majority of Americans wants President Trump removed from office immediately, with just a week to go before President-elect Biden is inaugurated, according to a new Ipsos poll for Axios.

The big picture: The 56% who want him removed is up, from 51% in another Ipsos poll last week. But three in four Republicans disagree. It's mostly Democrats and a slight majority of independents who want him gone.

  • The poll was taken just before Trump was impeached for a second time Wednesday for encouraging the rioters who stormed the Capitol last week.

By the numbers:

  • 94% of Democrats say Trump should be removed immediately.
  • 54% of independents agree.
  • Just 17% of Republicans agree.
  • Among those who identify themselves as traditional Republicans, 24% say Trump should be removed. But just 1% of self-identified Trump supporters are open to that — and 94% say no to removal.

Reality check: It's not going to happen. The Senate would have to hold a trial and convict Trump to remove him from office, and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell made it clear Wednesday that "there is simply no chance that a fair or serious trial could conclude before President-elect Biden is sworn in next week."

  • Vice President Mike Pence has already ruled out the other vehicle for ousting Trump: removing him under the 25th Amendment.

Flashback: It wasn't until August 1974 that a majority of Americans — 57% — supported removing Richard Nixon from office, after the House Judiciary Committee voted for impeachment and the Supreme Court ordered him to release damaging tapes of his conversations about Watergate, per the Pew Research Center.

Methodology: This Axios/Ipsos Poll was conducted Jan. 11-13, 2021, by Ipsos’ KnowledgePanel®. This poll is based on a nationally representative probability sample of 1,019 general population adults age 18 or older.

  • The margin of sampling error for the full sample is +/- 3.4 percentage points.

Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times

Section2

Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.

Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.

The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.

  • The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.

What the transcripts say:

  • Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
  • The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
  • Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."

Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.