Pollster Dan Cox said on Wednesday the Trump administration ranks lower than its three most recent predecessors on the issue of ethics.
“There’s a perception that this administration has a little bit of an ethical problem,” Cox, who is the research director at the Public Religion Research Institute, told Hill.TV’s Joe Concha on “What America’s Thinking.”
“Gallup has trend data going back a few administrations, which asked how ethically competent are members of the administration, and Trump ranks much lower than George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Bill Clinton’s administration,” he continued.
Thirty-seven percent of respondents said they would rate the Trump administration’s ethical standards as “excellent” or “good,” according to the Gallup survey, which was released in May.
Fifty-percent of respondents said they would rate the Obama administration’s ethical standards as “excellent” or good” in June of 2013, while 51 percent said the same about Bush’s administration in October of 2005.
Fifty-seven percent of respondents gave the Clinton administration “excellent” or “good” ratings on ethical standards in March of 1994.
Trump has faced backlash in recent days over the legal developments surrounding his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, and former personal attorney Michael Cohen.
Manafort was found guilty last week of eight counts of tax and bank fraud, while Cohen on the same day pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including campaign finance violations in which he implicated the president.
Trump has denied any wrongdoing, however, his opponents have used the developments to target him.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) accused Trump last week of engendering “a culture of cronyism and corruption in D.C.”
— Julia Manchester
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