Vast majority of Americans hold Trump responsible for Capitol siege, new Insider poll shows

• Americans overwhelmingly say that President Donald Trump is responsible on some level for the Capitol siege, according to a new Insider poll.
• 76% said Trump bears a "great deal" or "a lot" of responsibility.
• Less than one-fifth said the president is blameless for the riot at the Capitol.
• Trump was impeached over the Capitol siege on Wednesday.

An overwhelming majority of Americans (73%) surveyed said President Donald Trump bears a "great deal" or "a lot" of responsibility for the Capitol siege on January 6, a new Insider poll found.

Less than one-fifth of Americans think the president is blameless for the violence, which led Trump to become the commander-in-chief in US history to be impeached twice.

Poll participants were asked: "Do you think President Donald Trump bears responsibility for the Capitol Building riots on January 6?"

Here's how they responded:

• Roughly four-in-10, or 42%, said Trump bears a great deal of responsibility.
• About three-in-10, or 31%, said Trump bears a lot of responsibility.
• 13% said Trump bears a moderate amount of responsibility.
• 13% said a Trump bears a little responsibility.
• And just 19% said Trump bears no responsibility at all.

In the hours leading up to the mayhem at the US Capitol on January 6, when lawmakers met to certify President-elect Joe Biden's Electoral College victory, Trump delivered a raucous speech urging his supporters to "fight like hell" to take back their country. He continued to falsely claim that he won the election by a landslide, pushing the baseless assertion that there was mass voter fraud. Trump erroneously stated that Biden would be an "illegitimate" president, while calling on his supporters to march on the Capitol.

The violence and chaos that followed ultimately led to five deaths, including a police officer, and numerous injuries. The pro-Trump mob also destroyed property as the descended upon the Capitol. The pandemonium on January 6 marked a disturbing climax to Trump's weekslong effort to overturn the 2020 election result, and represented one of the most stunningly anti-democratic events in US history.

In the aftermath, lawmakers from both parties called for Trump's removal from office either via the 25th Amendment or impeachment.

The House ultimately voted to impeach Trump on Wednesday, with 10 Republicans joining their Democratic colleagues to formally charge the president with inciting insurrection.

As the House debated over Trump's impeachment prior to the vote, GOP House Minority Leader Kevin McCarty offered rare criticism of the president and said he was complicit in the riot at the Capitol.

"The president bears responsibility for Wednesday's attack by mob rioters," McCarthy said.

The day before he was impeached, Trump said of his pre-riot speech, "people thought that what I said was totally appropriate."

SurveyMonkey Audience polls from a national sample balanced by census data of age and gender. Respondents are incentivized to complete surveys through charitable contributions. Generally speaking, digital polling tends to skew toward people with access to the internet. SurveyMonkey Audience doesn't try to weight its sample based on race or income. Polling data collected 1,059 respondents January 13-14, 2021. All polls carried approximately a 3 percentage point margin of error individually.