Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., openly questioned Wednesday whether the House Democrats’ likely strategy of “presidential harassment” will work for them as they are set to retake the majority in January.
McConnell argued that he does not believe a push by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee to obtain the president’s tax returns or other moves, including impeachment, will go over well for them politically, as the Republicans have learned in the past.
“The whole issue of presidential harassment is interesting,” McConnell said at a Wednesday press conference, pointing to GOP efforts to impeach former President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s, noting that it backfired.
[Related: Kellyanne Conway: Voters won’t stand for wave of Trump investigations]
.@senatemajldr: “The whole issue of presidential harassment is interesting. I remember when we tried it in the late ’90s. We impeached President Clinton. His numbers went up and ours went down. And we under-performed in the next election.” pic.twitter.com/BfEWTEJ70J
— CSPAN (@cspan) November 7, 2018
“The Democrats in the House will have to decide just how much presidential harassment they think is good strategy,” McConnell said. “I’m not so sure it will work for them,”
“All I’m doing is making a historical observation that the business of presidential harassment, which we were deeply engaged in the late 90s, improved the president’s approval rating and tanked ours,” McConnell said. “Thus my observation is that might not be a smart strategy. But it’s up to them to decide how they want to handle that.”
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., the likely incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, and Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., indicated that they would pursue multiple investigations tied to Trump, including for a release of the president’s tax returns, when they retake the majority in January.
McConnell declined to say if there was anything the Senate could do, contrasting with the president’s tweet from Wednesday morning saying that he would use the upper chamber to investigate leaks of classified information emanating from the House.
