President Trump believes that Democrats shouldn’t try to impeach him if they take back the House, because he is doing a “great job” as president.
“I don’t think they can impeach somebody that’s doing a great job,” the president told Bloomberg Thursday. “You look at the economy, you look at jobs, you look at foreign, what’s going on with other countries. You look at trade deals. I’m doing a great job.”
While House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has urged Democrats to shy away from discussing impeachment, there are a handful of Democratic members and candidates for office who want to pursue it.
[Trump: Impeach me and the market crashes]
Six Democratic House members introduced articles of impeachment against the president in November 2017, arguing the president violated federal law and the public trust and should be charged with high crimes and misdemeanors. Rep. Al Green, D-Tex., has led the charge, trying multiple times to get impeachment articles through the lower chamber.
The president said that if Congress moves to impeach him, all future presidents will be in danger of having impeachment articles brought against them if the opposition party takes control of Congress.
“So you get elected as a Republican or a Democrat and the opposite party gets put into the House that would mean, ‘Oh, let’s impeach him.’ Can’t do it,” Trump said. “If you look at the definition of impeachment, that’s a high bar and that would take a long time to fight that if you’re doing a good job. And I’m doing a great job.”
Republicans are facing a particularly tough challenge to keep the House, where some 50 GOP lawmakers are either resigning, retiring, or seeking other office in 2018. Democrats are expected to narrowly claim the majority in the House in November, but the Senate is widely considered to stay under Republican control.
Democrats have to take back at least 23 seats to reclaim the majority in the House. A Democratic-controlled House could pass impeachment articles with a simple majority vote. In the Senate, impeachment articles would face a great test. Convicting and removing a president takes a two-thirds majority vote, which is unlikely given the current makeup of the upper chamber.
