By Chris Walker
This article was originally published by Truthout
Many members of Trump’s cabinet — including Trump himself — receive low favorability ratings from Americans.
New polling suggests, in the wake of President Donald Trump firing former Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kristi Noem from her position and assigning her to a new role, that a plurality of voters would like to see the firings of numerous other Trump administration officials.
The latest Economist/YouGov poll published on Tuesday found huge support for Noem’s firing. Just 15 percent said they disapproved of Noem being removed as head of DHS, while 55 percent said they were happy with the action.
Noem’s firing came amid numerous scandals. During her tenure, she gutted the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and implemented policies making it more difficult to fund the agency during emergencies; immigration agencies under her purview violated dozens, if not hundreds, of court orders to rein in their unconstitutional actions; and she spent more than $200 million in taxpayer dollars to create an ad campaign featuring herself, paying out to a firm to which she has deep financial ties.
Noem also oversaw the expansion of DHS presence across the U.S., increasing the violent policing methods of federal agencies like Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) as they conducted immigration raids in cities throughout the country. Under Noem’s watch, immigration agents shot and killed two Minneapolis residents, Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti, whom she baselessly smeared as “domestic terrorists.”
Multiple agency and department heads within the White House have engaged in similarly questionable behavior — and much of the American public wants to see them fired, too, the new poll found.
The survey shows that 44 percent of Americans want Attorney General Pam Bondi to be fired, for example, likely because of her questionable handling of the release of the Epstein files. Only 22 percent say she should remain in her position.
Similarly, 40 percent want Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, who is overseeing Trump’s war in Iran, to be fired, with only 29 percent saying he should keep his job.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who has downplayed the spread of measles across the U.S., falsely claimed that acetaminophen causes autism, and appointed anti-vaxxers to advise him on policy, also receives numbers indicating strong support for his removal from office, with 43 percent of Americans backing that idea and only 33 percent opposed.
Even lesser-known figures, such as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, receive telling numbers. Thirty-three percent of respondents in the poll want Lutnick fired (versus just 18 percent who want him to remain), while 29 percent want Bessent terminated (with 23 percent saying he should stay).
Only one member of Trump’s cabinet discussed in the poll, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, saw more people wanting him to keep his job than to lose it, with 29 percent wanting him fired and 36 percent wanting him to stay. Even then, however, a near-equal amount of respondents, 35 percent, said they were not sure how they felt about Rubio keeping his position.
Trump’s approval rating in the poll is also very low, suggesting that it’s possible his cabinet members’ low numbers could be driven, at least in part, by the president’s unpopularity.
According to the poll, just 40 percent of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 55 percent say they disapprove, just over one year into his second term in office.
The poll did not ask respondents how they felt about “firing” Trump, who, as president, can only be removed through the process of impeachment or a 25th Amendment action taken by his cabinet officers. Such an outcome is incredibly unlikely, but separate polls have indicated many Americans would like to see it happen.
Polling on the issue of impeaching Trump is scant. However, a Free Speech for People poll conducted last fall, focused specifically on voters in swing districts, found that 49 percent of said voters were supportive of impeaching Trump, with 44 percent opposed.
More recently, a Data for Progress poll published last month asked voters if they supported impeaching Trump over a singular issue — his handling of the Epstein files. On that issue alone, 48 percent of voters said they backed the idea, while 45 percent were opposed.
Given Trump’s low approval ratings on various issues within the Economist/YouGov poll published on Tuesday — including on immigration (a net -7-point rating), the economy (net -21 points), and foreign policy (net -15 points) — it’s a real possibility that many, if not most, Americans would support impeaching Trump more generally than other polls have indicated.
This article was originally published by Truthout and is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). Please maintain all links and credits in accordance with our republishing guidelines.
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