--- title: James Comey Fired: Most Americans Think It Was Inappropriate description: More than half of Americans think President Donald Trump firing FBI Director James Comey on Tuesday was an inappropriate move canonical: https://time.com/4776567/poll-donald-trump-fire-james-comey-inappropriate/ author: Julia Zorthian article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2017-05-11T22:00:09.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T04:53:20.280Z article:section: Politics og:title: Poll: 54% of Americans Think Trump Firing Comey Was Inappropriate og:description: And nearly half think the firing will compromise the Russia investigation og:url: https://time.com/4776567/poll-donald-trump-fire-james-comey-inappropriate/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt32247c97c88233bb/6988cd0bcf40a8732dc47a79/americans-feelings-donald-trump-firing-comey.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: americans-feelings-donald-trump-firing-comey og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Poll: 54% of Americans Think Trump Firing Comey Was Inappropriate twitter:description: And nearly half think the firing will compromise the Russia investigation twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt32247c97c88233bb/6988cd0bcf40a8732dc47a79/americans-feelings-donald-trump-firing-comey.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Poll: 54% of Americans Think President Trump Firing James Comey Was Inappropriate  by [Julia Zorthian](/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian May 11, 2017 10:00 PM CUT  About 300 protesters arrive at the White House during a peaceful protest march the day after President Trump unexpectedly fired Director of the FBI, James Comey. About 300 protesters arrive at the White House during a peaceful protest march the day after President Trump unexpectedly fired Director of the FBI, James Comey.John Middlebrook—AP  by [Julia Zorthian](/author/julia-zorthian/)  ## Julia Zorthian May 11, 2017 10:00 PM CUT More than half of Americans think President Donald Trump [firing FBI Director James Comey](http://time.com/4775430/the-comey-misfire/ "undefined") on Tuesday was [an inappropriate move](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/11/most-americans-call-it-inappropriate-for-trump-to-fire-fbis-comey.html "undefined"), a new poll released Thursday found. The NBC News/Survey Monkey poll found that 54 percent of Americans said the action was inappropriate while 38 percent said it was appropriate. The results of that question track nearly perfectly with Trump’s current [Gallup](http://www.gallup.com/poll/201617/gallup-daily-trump-job-approval.aspx "undefined") disapproval rating (55%) and [approval rating](http://time.com/4774551/donald-trump-approval-rating-may-quinnipiac-poll/ "undefined") (38%), [CNBC reports](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/11/most-americans-call-it-inappropriate-for-trump-to-fire-fbis-comey.html "undefined"). Along with [finding Comey’s dismissal inappropriat](http://time.com/4773423/james-comey-fired-donald-trump-fbi-backfire/ "undefined")e, 55% of poll respondents indicated that Trump’s actions made them less confident that there will be a fair Russia investigation. Thirty-six percent of people said firing Comey made them more confident in the results of the investigation. Respondents thought it was most likely that Trump dismissed Comey for reasons linked to the Russia investigation, with 46% of people saying they believed that was the primary cause — even though the White House has denied that the FBI’s investigation into any Russian election interference was relevant in the decision. NBC News and Survey Monkey conducted the poll online on May 10 and 11 with 3,746 likely voters as participants. The margin for error is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points. \[[_CNBC_](http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/11/most-americans-call-it-inappropriate-for-trump-to-fire-fbis-comey.html "undefined")\] ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4776567/poll-donald-trump-fire-james-comey-inappropriate/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4776567/poll-donald-trump-fire-james-comey-inappropriate/"},"headline":"Poll: 54% of Americans Think President Trump Firing James Comey Was Inappropriate","datePublished":"2017-05-11T22:00:09.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T04:53:20.280Z","description":"And nearly half think the firing will compromise the Russia investigation","url":"https://time.com/4776567/poll-donald-trump-fire-james-comey-inappropriate/","keywords":["White House","Donald Trump","James Comey","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt32247c97c88233bb/6988cd0bcf40a8732dc47a79/americans-feelings-donald-trump-firing-comey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Julia Zorthian","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/julia-zorthian/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt32247c97c88233bb/6988cd0bcf40a8732dc47a79/americans-feelings-donald-trump-firing-comey.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"americans-feelings-donald-trump-firing-comey","caption":"About 300 protesters arrive at the White House during a peaceful protest march the day after President Trump unexpectedly fired Director of the FBI, James Comey.","creditText":"John Middlebrook—AP","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/white-house/","name":"White House"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4776567/poll-donald-trump-fire-james-comey-inappropriate/","name":"Poll: 54% of Americans Think President Trump Firing James Comey Was Inappropriate"}}]}] ```