Americans are pretty conflicted about the whole impeachment thing

Americans aren't buying President Trump's story that attorney Michael Cohen is a liar, but they may not be too bothered by it.

Cohen pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations, testifying that Trump directed him to make illegal payments to women who say they had affairs with Trump before he was president. Trump surrogates have launched a campaign to discredit Cohen, with attorney Rudy Giuliani calling him a "pathological liar" without credibility.

But 64 percent of Americans believe Cohen's side of the story, an Axios/SurveyMonkey poll published Tuesday found. A full 93 percent of Democrats, 66 percent of independents, and 38 percent of Republicans believe that Cohen made the hush payments at Trump's request.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Despite widespread belief that Trump was involved in the criminal acts, most Americans aren't ready to call on Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings. When asked whether respondents would like to see Congress begin impeachment, 44 percent said yes. A majority of Democrats, African-American women, and millennials said they would support impeachment, but 49 percent of independents and just 8 percent of Republicans said the same. About 40 percent of other demographic groups, like suburban white women and rural voters, said they were ready for proceedings to begin. Axios notes that 44 percent overall is higher than the proportion of Americans who supported impeachment for former President Richard Nixon shortly before he was ousted.

The Axios/SurveyMonkey poll was conducted Aug. 22-24, reaching 4,362 adults in an online survey. The margin of error is 3 percentage points. See more poll results at Axios.