Trump's odds of staying in office: The Day 6 Impeach-O-Meter for Jan. 19
When Donald Trump generates headlines, Day 6 fires up the "Impeach-O-Meter," inviting political experts to estimate the odds his presidency will end in impeachment. These are, of course, subjective and hypothetical scores and the impeachment process is complex and dependent on many factors.
It's been another tumultuous week in Washington, so we're once again firing up the Day 6 Impeach-O-Meter for another reading.
Every few weeks, we're checking in on the odds of U.S. President Donald Trump's impeachment, from one — meaning totally safe in the White House — to 100, meaning impeachment is imminent.
When we last checked in, Seth Abramson of the University of New Hampshire cranked the odds of impeachment up to 65 per cent, the highest number we've seen to date.
This week, Politico reporter Darren Samuelsohn says the odds are much lower. Here's his take:
"It's been another upside-down week in Washington, but when is there not really an upside-down week? We obviously started with the mass panic in Hawaii, and we're ending with everything that really talks about government dysfunction in Washington with all the chatter about a government shutdown.
We had President Trump's doctor saying he's a healthy 71-year-old, despite no exercise, little sleep and a bad diet; this ongoing saga over President Trump's lawyers paying hush money to a porn star who he had, allegedly, an affair with; and on top of that, you have Steve Bannon up on the Hill dodging a lot of questions with respect to what happened during his time at the White House. Eventually, he's going to go before Robert Mueller, the real Russia investigator, and he's going to have to answer questions there.
At this point, impeachment is discussed, but until there's a major political shift in terms of who's in charge, impeachment is really just kind of chatter in the background."
So where does Darren Samuelsohn place the probability of a Donald Trump impeachment this week?
"I'd say it's about 10 per cent."
The odds have fallen! Darren Samuelsohn of Politico has dropped the Impeach-O-Meter reading by 55 points, down to a new low of 10 per cent.
That's this week's edition of the Impeach-O-Meter. We'll continue to track the numbers in the weeks to come — and you can follow along here.
To hear Darren Samuelsohn give his Impeach-O-Meter prediction, download our podcast or click the 'Listen' button at the top of this page.