Sen. Cory Booker said he would rather face President Trump in the 2020 election than have him removed from office.
“As a guy who is a big competitor; I want to beat Donald Trump mano a mano, I want to face him down on a debate floor. So, this is not something that I want to do,” the New Jersey Democrat said Sunday on NBC’s Meet the Press.
Booker, 50, backed House Nancy Pelosi in her attempt to withhold articles to get a “fair” trial from the Senate. “We cannot name managers until we see what the process is on the Senate side,” the California Democrat said last week.
[Read: Pelosi: No plans to send impeachment articles to Senate this year]
The threat came after liberal pundits suggested House Democrats try to use impeachment articles as a bargaining chip. Pelosi has withheld the articles, and the House is not expected to get back until Jan. 7.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has dismissed attempts to coerce how he would conduct any potential Senate trial, saying he is in “no hurry” for Pelosi to send them over. Booker said if a trial happens in the Senate that he was going “to evaluate the facts objectively.”
House Democrats have voted for two articles of impeachment against Trump. It takes a two-thirds vote of the Senate to remove a president from office.
