What’s more, the findings hold across party lines: A majority of Democrats, along with a majority of Republicans, believe the president should not be given immunity.
Well, except for one president.
According to a CBS News poll released Thursday, Republicans who oppose presidential immunity have an exception: Donald Trump. While most Americans and overwhelming majorities of Democrats believe that Trump should not be given immunity either, a majority of Republicans — two-thirds in fact — believe that former presidents should not be given immunity. should Only the President should have that protection. No other President should have that power.
What’s particularly noteworthy here is that the question about Trump preceded questions about all presidents. Thus, one would expect that Republicans who supported protections for Trump would have realized it would be hypocritical to reject protections for presidents in general. Perhaps some of them suddenly realized the dangerous trajectory they were on. But it’s safe to assume that most were simply applying different standards to their favorite presidents.
We’ve seen this phenomenon a lot recently: Earlier this month, The Washington Post reported that a poll showed that a majority of Republicans said they wouldn’t vote for someone with a felony conviction for president in April, but then changed their minds after Trump was convicted of a felony.
And on Thursday, we looked at polls about the guilty verdicts handed down to President Trump and President Biden’s son, Hunter. Americans overall, including majorities of Democrats and Republicans, said they supported the verdict in Hunter Biden’s case. A majority of Americans and a majority of Democrats also supported President Trump’s sentence, but a majority of Republicans did not.
Time and time again, Republicans have applied different standards to Trump: They are 57 points more likely than Republicans to say they would vote for someone convicted of a felony after it happened to Trump; they are 69 points more likely to support Hunter Biden’s sentence than Trump’s; and they are 22 points more likely to say Trump should be given immunity than they are to say presidents in general should be given immunity.
These differences are unusual. Americans overall are more consistent in their views. Before and after the Trump verdict, majorities opposed voting for someone convicted of a felony. Majorities upheld the verdicts in both cases. Majorities opposed granting presidential immunity. All of this is true for Democrats, too.
This is instructive because it negates the idea that new developments in Trump’s criminal trial or prosecution will tilt the election against him. Polls in April suggested that a conviction of Trump would tilt his party against him, but in fact it has shifted the party in Trump’s favor. Republicans are expected to oppose the unlikely but not impossible event that the Supreme Court grants the president broad immunity from prosecution, but the case centers on Trump’s personal immunity.
About two-thirds of self-described conservatives told YouGov that they support broad immunity for President Donald Trump’s actions as president. The right hasn’t changed Trump; Trump has changed the right.
