A majority of Americans think President Donald Trump’s response to violence that erupted at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was not strong enough, according to a poll released Wednesday.
According to the NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist poll, 52 percent of respondents said Trump’s response was not strong enough, while 27 percent thought it was sufficient.
Just 19 percent of Republicans thought Trump should have taken a stronger position, while 59 percent thought his response was strong enough.
Among Democrats, on the other hand, 79 percent of respondents thought Trump’s response wasn’t strong enough, while 10 percent thought it was sufficient.
In his initial response, Trump condemned violence from “many sides” in a statement he did not clarify until two days later, when he condemned white supremacists, neo-Nazis and hate groups by name. In an off-the-rails press conference on Wednesday, however, he again reversed position, returning to equivocal rhetoric blaming “both sides” that white supremacists hailed as an improvement.
The survey was conducted from a sample of 1,125 adults from Aug. 14–15, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points. Party affiliation results were taken from a sample of 859 registered voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.
