President Donald Trump’s approval rating has remained steady after his week from hell that saw his former campaign manager Paul Manafort convicted on eight counts and his former personal attorney Michael Cohen pleaded guilty on eight counts, a new poll revealed on Sunday.
In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey, conducted August 22nd (the day after the Manafort and Cohen news broke) through August 25th, the president’s approval rating was 44 percent while 52 percent disapproved.
In an earlier, separately conducted poll, through August 18th and August 22nd, Trump’s approval rating was at 46 percent while 51 percent disapproved.
A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found President Trump’s approval rating is 44 percent, which is within the margin to his previous approval rating
The new number came after Michael Cohen (pictured) pleaded guilty to eight charges and Paul Manafort was convicted on eight counts
That’s within the margin of error.
Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, who conducted the poll with Democratic pollster Peter Hart at Hart Research Associates, told NBC News that Trump’s approval rating is ‘remarkably stable.’
Even though his approval rating is steady, 40 percent say the president may have been involved in wrongdoing.
Voters are split along partisan lines on that topic, with 53 percent of Republicans saying Trump was not involved in wrongdoing while 71 percent of Democrats said he may have been.
And 56 percent say the president has not been honest about special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe into alleged collusion between his 2016 presidential campaign and Russia with 21 percent saying he has been honest.
In the partisan breakdown, Republican support for Trump on the honesty issue could be soft: only 46 percent strongly agree that he has been honest while 81 percent of Democrats strongly disagree that Trump has been honest.
Last week was considered one of the toughest in Trump’s presidency that saw his former campaign manager and former personal attorney in court in the same hour on the same day.
Trump has repeatedly claimed he is the victim of a ‘witch hunt.’ He touted Manafort as a ‘brave man’ while accusing Cohen of making up stories to get a deal.
And White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said repeatedly at her briefing last Wednesday that the president ‘did nothing wrong’ and there ‘are no charges against him.’
Manafort was convicted of eight charges of tax and bank fraud on lastTuesday.
Cohen, who served as Trump’s personal attorney and worked in his Trump Organization, pleaded guilty Tuesday to eight counts that included tax fraud and campaign finance violations.
Cohen’s attorney Lanny Davis says Trump ordered his client to make hush-money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels and Playboy model Karen McDougal to keep them quiet about alleged affairs, which he argues makes the president similarly guilty of a felony.
Last week was seen as one of the toughest in Trump’s presidency after Paul Manafort (pictured) and Michael Cohen were in court within hours of each other
Trump has denied the affairs but his lawyer Rudy Giuliani said he knew about the $130,000 payment to Daniels.
Trump was not mentioned by name in United States District Court in Manhattan on Tuesday but Cohen told a judge the payments to the two women were ‘at the direction of the candidate,’ and ‘for the principal purpose of influencing the election’ for president in 2016.
Cohen ’caused and made the payments described herein in order to influence the 2016 presidential election,’ his plea agreement with federal prosecutors reads. ‘In so doing, he coordinated with one or more members of the campaign, including through meetings and phone calls, about the fact, nature, and timing of the payments.’
Daniels was paid $130,000 from Cohen directly and McDougal was paid from the publisher American Media, Inc., which owns the National Enquirer.
David Pecker, the chief executive of American Media, was granted immunity by federal prosecutors for providing information about the payments, The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday.
The $150,000 payment to McDougal, known as ‘catch and kill,’ resulted in her being paid for exclusive rights to her story, which the Enquirer then never published.
And Manafort faces a second trial in Washington D.C. on Sept. 17 on separate charges that include conspiracy, money laundering, failing to register as a foreign lobbyist and making false and misleading statements to federal agents.
The Manafort charges stem almost completely from his personal businesses but they came to light after he went to work for Trump.