DON IN THE DUMPS
DONALD Trump has branded "fake" three new polls which show around half of Americans want him impeached and removed from office.
The new findings come after the House of Representatives formally voted for there to be an impeachment inquiry into the President.
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He’s accused of abusing his office for personal gain and jeopardising jeopardised national security by asking Ukrainian President Volodymr Zelensky to investigate his Democratic political rival Joe Biden and his son.
The new polls were carried out by Fox News, NBC News/Wall Street Journal and MSN.
The Fox poll found 49 per cent of American voters wanted Trump removed from office, with 41 per cent opposed to impeaching him.
The results of that poll are more or less the same as last month, when 51 per cent wanted him removed.
Overall, 42 percent of voters approve of Trump’s job performance and 57 percent disapprove, the study found.
Republican pollster Daron Shaw, who conducted the Fox poll, along with Democratic counterpart Chris Anderson, said as long as Trump’s party leadership remain behind him, his support will hold up.
'LOUSY'
“As long as Republican leaders remain united behind the president, it’s unlikely his overall support will drop much below 40 percent,” he said.
But when asked about the numbers outside the White House, the President hit back.
“You’re looking at the wrong polls. I have the real polls. The CNN polls are fake," he said.
“The Fox polls have always been lousy. I tell them they ought to get themselves a new pollster.”
The findings of the Fox poll were mirrored by an NBC News/Wall Street Journal study which showed that 49 per cent agreed that Trump should be impeached while 46 per cent disagreed.
What is impeachment of the President of the United States?
Impeachment is a formal charge of serious wrongdoing against sitting a President.
It is one of the few ways they can be kicked out of the White House before an election.
The US Constitution states a President "shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanours".
Presidents from George Washington onwards have often threatened with impeachment but usually their political opponents have lacked the will or support to carry it out.
The initial stage of the process comes in the House of Representatives, the lower chamber of Congress, which has "sole power of impeachment".
The House votes on whether the President should face the impeachment and a simple majority is required for that to go ahead.
Then the case would be tried by the Senate, the upper chamber of Congress, where a two-thirds majority is needed.
Only two Presidents in history have been impeached.
The most recent was Bill Clinton, who was impeached in the House on charges of perjury and obstructing justice in 1998.
It related to his denials of an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky.
However, when the trial reached the Senate, it failed to get close to the two-thirds backing it needed to remove him from office.
The other was Andrew Johnson, who served as President for four years from 1865.
He was impeached by the House in 1868, just 11 days after he got rid of his secretary of war Edwin Stanton.
The two-thirds majority needed in the Senate was missed by just one vote.
Richard Nixon resigned before he could be impeached over the Watergate scandal.
That marks a change from the same survey last month when the results were the other way around with 43 per cent said he should go while 49 percent wanted him to remain in office.
Both the NBC News/Wall Street Journal and Fox News polls show the continuing partisan divide when it comes to support or opposition to the President.
NBC News/Wall Street Journal shows 88 per cent of Democrats want him impeached and 90 per cent of Republicans opposing it.
Meanwhile, an MSN poll showed 52 percent supported the Senate voting to remove Trump from office if he was impeached, which was down compared to results late September and early October.
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Polling at the end of last week also showed that 49 per cent of Americans want Trump removed from the White House.
Despite the ongoing investigations a ABC News/Washington Post poll was pretty evenly matched.
They found that 47 per cent of Americans didn't think Trump should be removed from office.
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