Advertisement

Trump warns his impeachment could follow if Democrats take back Congress

"We gotta fight like hell, and we gotta win the House and we gotta win the Senate."

President Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a campaign rally on April 28, 2018 in Washington Michigan. CREDIT: Scott Olson/Getty Images
President Donald Trump speaks to supporters during a campaign rally on April 28, 2018 in Washington Michigan. CREDIT: Scott Olson/Getty Images

President Trump is concerned he will face impeachment if Republicans lose their House majority, he said Saturday night at a rally in Michigan.

“We have to keep the House,” he said. “Because if you listen to Maxine Waters, she goes around saying, ‘We will impeach him! We will impeach him,’” he said, referring to the Democratic congresswoman from California. “Then people said, ‘He hasn’t done anything wrong,’…’Oh, that doesn’t matter, we will impeach the president.’”

Trump noted that the party in the White House usually loses seats during the midterms and called for Republicans not to get comfortable.

“We cannot be complacent — we gotta go out and we gotta fight like hell and we gotta win the House and we gotta win the Senate,” he said.

Advertisement

Waters, whom Trump singled out, has repeatedly called for Trump to resign or be impeached. Most recently, last Tuesday, she was asked at the Time 100 gala if she had any advice for Trump.

“Please resign so that I won’t have to keep up this fight of your having to be impeached because I don’t think you deserve to be there,” she said. “Just get out.”

On Monday on MSNBC, Waters said she often hears from people around the country saying they support impeachment.

“Everywhere I go, people are talking about, ‘Why can’t y’all get rid of him? Why can’t you impeach him?’” Waters said. “They say all of these things and I’m not just talking about my district — whether I’m on the airplane, I’m walking down the street in New York, wherever I am — I’m hearing it.”

And Waters is onto something: A poll released last Thursday found that if Democrats take back the House, more than 70 percent of Democratic voters want them to take steps to begin impeachment proceedings.

Advertisement

But House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) has been less keen to call for impeachment, saying she believes it would harm Democrats ahead of the midterm elections, and calling the push for impeachment a “gift” for Republicans.

“I don’t think we should be talking about impeachment. I’ve been very clear right from the start,” Pelosi said Thursday during a press conference. “On the political side, I think it’s a gift to the Republicans. We want to talk about what they’re doing to undermine working families in our country and what we are doing to increase their payrolls and lower their costs.”
Pelosi added that she doesn’t see the upcoming midterms as a referendum on the White House.
“It’s about our addressing the needs of the American people, and we cannot take our eye off that ball,” she said, adding that impeachment proceedings should, if they happen, be bipartisan.
“Impeachment is a very serious matter,” she said. “I don’t think we have the information to go to that place, and I would discourage any discussion of impeachment.”
With the midterm elections six months away, Democrats currently hold about a nine point lead over Republicans on the generic ballot.