Gallup Editor-in-Chief: A Lot of Americans Dismiss Idea Trump Colluded with Russia

Gallup Editor-in-Chief Frank Newport said Tuesday most Americans do not believe President Trump did anything criminal with Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

“We just asked did Trump do something illegal in terms of Russians affecting the election, and only 30 percent roughly said ‘yes’ on that, so a lot of Americans have kind of dismissed the idea that he colluded to the extent that he did something illegal,” he told Hill.TV.

“A lot more Americans would say he did something wrong, but it wasn’t illegal,” he added.

The polling firm last week released a poll that found that only 29 percent of respondents said they believed Trump acted illegally in terms of Russian involvement during the 2016 election.

Twenty-seven percent said Trump acted unethically but not illegally in regards to Russian involvement in the election. Thirty-five percent said Trump did nothing seriously wrong.

Thirty-one percent thought that Trump acted illegally with payments to women who claim to have had affairs with him, 37 percent said Trump acted unethically but not illegally, and 23 percent said the president did nothing seriously wrong.

Newport said the Russia investigation is “not something that’s on the tops of Americans minds right now.”

“What is, I should say, is government,” he added. “We consistently in our polling ask ‘What’s wrong with America? What’s the most important problem?’ and consistently, with some exceptions occasionally, but it’s government itself.”

“Americans are really disgusted with government and how it operates here in Washington, D.C., so that’s what I think if you stop Americans on the street [that] they’re talking about. And that’s bipartisan. If you talk to Democrats on the street they say government’s broken, mainly they’re thinking about Trump. But if you’re talking about Republicans, they’re thinking, ‘Yeah, Congress and the whole deep state is what’s wrong with government.”

“We have a crisis right here in our nation’s capitol, according to the American public, and I think that is more important to them, more salient to them than thinking about the possibility of Russian involvement in our elections or a possible terrorist attack in the future.”