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More than half of Americans believe Donald Trump should testify to the House select committee investigating the January 6, 2021, Capitol attack, with three quarters saying the former president's testimony should be public, according to a poll.
The Monmouth University survey found that 60 percent of Americans believe Trump should have to testify to the committee, after the panel unanimously voted to subpoena him at the end of its ninth and possibly final hearing on October 13.
When broken down further, nearly nine in 10 Democrats (89 percent) think Trump should be made to testify, along with 61 percent of independents.
Of the 34 percent of the public who do not believe Trump should have to testify about the events surrounding January 6, more than two-thirds (67 percent) are Republican.
The poll found that should Trump answer questions under oath about the Capitol riot, there is partisan support for the hearings to be made public.
About 77 percent of Americans say any Trump testimony should be public compared to 17 percent who believe it should be private—including eight in 10 Democrats and independents and nearly two-thirds of Republicans.
Trump has given no indication on whether he will comply with the subpoena that the January 6 House select committee said it will issue to him.
Barbara McQuade, a University of Michigan law professor and former U.S attorney, previously told Newsweek that even if Trump does decide to comply, his contribution may be minimal at best.
"My guess is he will stall, invoke executive privilege or even the Fifth Amendment, and never appear at all," McQuade said. "If he invokes the Fifth Amendment, he cannot be compelled to testify unless he receives immunity, and no one is going to give him that."
Elsewhere, the poll found that the January 6 House select committee's live televised hearings have not altered public opinion too much on whether Trump was responsible for the riot or whether he should be criminally charged over it.
The October results reveal that 36 percent of people think Trump was "directly responsible" for the riot—two points fewer than the September and August Monmouth polls, and six points down from the June survey.
The latest poll also found that 27 percent said they believe that Trump encouraged those involved in the January 6 attack but was not directly responsible for their actions, almost the same as the previous three surveys (25 percent, 26 percent and 25 percent respectively).
There is also no discernible difference for those who think Trump should be charged over January 6. In the latest survey, 40 percent said they approve of the move to indict the former president, compared to 41 percent who said they approved in September and August.
The public is still almost split down the middle on whether Trump poses an "actual danger to American democracy" in the wake of the January 6 attack. Exactly half (50 percent) believe the former president is not a current danger to democracy, compared to 47 percent who believe he is, and 3 percent who said they don't know.
"The committee's efforts to paint Trump as a clear and present danger have not really hit the mark," Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in a statement.
"That is due in part to the fact it is preaching to the choir according to the demographics of who has been paying attention."
The latest Monmouth University poll was conducted from October 13 to 17 among 808 adults. The results have a margin of error of +/- 5.2 percentage points.
Trump has been contacted for comment.
About the writer
Ewan Palmer is a Newsweek News Reporter based in London, U.K. His focus is reporting on US politics, and Florida ... Read more