Washington: When Michael Elliott died, the last voice he heard was that of his ex-wife, his best friend.

In a short phone conversation moments before Elliott took his last breath, she told him what he wanted to hear.

"I told him that everything's going to be all right," Teresa Elliott told The Washington Post. "And Donald Trump has been impeached."

Michael Elliott died "peacefully" surrounded by friends and neighbours in his home in a suburb outside of Portland, Oregon, according to an obituary published in the Oregonian.

Teresa Elliott, who lives in Texas, said she couldn't make it to Oregon in time. So on April 6, one of Michael Elliott's friends called her and told her that he was about to die. The two talked as someone held up the phone to the dying man's ear.

Afterward, one of his friends took the phone "and told me that he had completely relaxed and taken his last breath, and he was gone," Teresa Elliott said.

In his obituary, the 75-year-old was described as a "Porsche enthusiast" and a keen golfer.

His health had declined over the past decade, but it became worse after congestive heart failure was diagnosed a couple of years ago. He had been bedridden the past several months, Teresa Elliott said. The two, who didn't have children, remained close friends after their divorce.

Michael Elliott was a longtime Democrat and was very interested in politics; a "CNN junkie", he was appalled by the current political climate. He found President Trump to be a "loathsome individual," Teresa Elliott said. Asked what, specifically, her ex-husband had said about Trump, she replied, "Nothing that you could print".

She said she gave her ex-husband the false news because she wanted him to die with a happy thought.

Whether Trump would be impeached has been a subject of public discourse since before the November presidential election.

Allan Lichtman, an American University historian who predicted that Trump would become president, had already made the case for his impeachment. He said  in September that if elected, the real estate mogul would be impeached by a Republican Congress that would rather have a President Pence.

Now, just a few months removed from when Trump took office, Lichtman has written a book: The Case for Impeachment.

"This one is not based on a system; it's just my gut. They don't want Trump as president, because they can't control him. He's unpredictable. They'd love to have Pence - an absolutely down-the-line, conservative, controllable Republican," Lichtman told The Post.

"And I'm quite certain Trump will give someone grounds for impeachment, either by doing something that endangers national security or because it helps his pocketbook."

A February national poll by Public Policy Polling found that Americans are evenly divided about impeaching Trump. Two weeks earlier, 35 per cent favoured impeachment. That number went up to 46 percent by February 10.

The latest Public Policing Polling national poll published on March 30 found Trump's approval rating falling to its lowest level yet with 40 per cent of voters approving of the job he's doing, to 53 per cent who disapprove. The poll was taken before air strikes on Syria and the negotiations over the North Korea crisis.