Majority of Americans say no need for Trump to sell businesses, Bloomberg poll shows

A new Bloomberg poll shows a majority of Americans think it is not necessary to force U.S. president-elect Donald Trump to sell his businesses in order to avoid conflicts of interest.

The poll released Wednesday shows 69 percent of the respondents believe it goes too far to force the New York real estate billionaire to sell all his businesses so that neither he nor his family could potentially profit from actions he takes as president.

The first Bloomberg National Poll since the Nov. 8 presidential election also found that 51 percent of those surveyed are very or mostly confident Trump will put the nation's best interests ahead of his family's finances when he deals with foreign leaders.

A few weeks after winning the election, Trump has suggested on Twitter that he will be leaving his great business "in total" in order to "fully focus on running the country." He has scheduled a news conference on Dec. 15 to address the topic.

"While I am not mandated to do this under the law, I feel it is visually important, as President, to in no way have a conflict of interest with my various businesses," he said on Twitter.

However, two-thirds of U.S. adults think Trump needs to choose between being president or a businessman, said the poll.

Trump sold all his stock holdings in June, his spokesman Jason Miller said Tuesday. The move shows the president-elect has begun to address concerns about potential conflict between his businesses and his career in White House.

Ethics experts have suggested that selling his corporate assets is the only sure way to separate them from his new position of power, according to Bloomberg News.

According to the New York Times, financial filings submitted by Trump and released in May by the Federal Election Commission show that as of that month, Trump's portfolio was worth at least 22 million U.S. dollars, and included a number of the country's best-known companies like Apple, Walmart and MasterCard.

Trump's largest single holding was a stake in a multistrategy fixed-income hedge fund managed by BlackRock that had a value of at least 25 million dollars, the New York Times said, adding it is not known if he sold that or smaller holdings.

In addition, the Bloomberg poll shows the American public also appear to be OK with Trump re-calibrating some of his campaign promises, including backing off from prosecuting his former Democratic rival Hillary Clinton over her private email server use, dumping Obamacare, and banning all Muslims from entering the United States.

According to the poll, 73 percent of the respondents are fine with Trump making adjustments to his positions, while only 20 percent of them view his change of tune as "broken promises."

It seems that Trump is still in his honeymoon period with the American public, but how long this could last remains to be seen.

The Bloomberg poll shows that 55 percent of the respondents say they're more optimistic about a Trump presidency because of his actions and statements since the election, while 35 percent are more pessimistic.

Like other winning candidates in the past, Trump enjoyed a post-election boost in popularity, but his favorable rate is still well behind President Barack Obama's 78 percent in a January 2009 Gallup poll after winning his first term.

source: Xinhua