News and Commentary

Pelosi On Losing The House In 2020 Over Impeachment: ‘Doesn’t Matter’

   DailyWire.com
U.S. Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi answers questions during her weekly press conference on January 31, 2019 in Washington, DC.
Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images

The closing keynote event at the 2019 Texas Tribune Festival was a one-on-one conversation with Speaker of the House Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA).

During the approximately hour and fifteen minute event on Saturday evening, moderator Evan Smith, CEO and co-founder of The Texas Tribune, spoke with Pelosi about impeachment proceedings against President Donald Trump.

When Smith asked Pelosi if she was troubled by the idea that an impeachment process might hurt Democrats in the 2020 election, the Speaker replied, “It doesn’t matter.”

SMITH: I want to ask you … heading into the next election cycle, do you have any anxiety at all about any of the stuff we’re talking about or anything that we’re not talking about impacting your ability to hold control of the House in 2020?

PELOSI: Doesn’t matter.

SMITH: It doesn’t matter?

PELOSI: Our first responsibility is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

Pelosi also said: “People say you have to take a political risk doing that. That doesn’t matter. That doesn’t matter because we cannot have a President of the United States undermining his oath of office, his loyalty to his oath of office, undermining our national security, and undermining the integrity of our elections. Our elections are the fundamental point of our democracy.”

After quoting Thomas Paine, Pelosi added:

If this activity, this pattern of behavior were to prevail, and the president continued to ignore that Article 2 does not say he can do whatever he wants, then it’s over for the republic. We will have the equivalent of a monarchy. So, the times have found us, and we will take the course of integrity, of deliberation, of fairness, as I think we have done all along…

In the aftermath of the whistleblower complaint alleging that President Trump pressured Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate a matter connected to former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, many Democratic politicians and commentators called for impeachment proceedings.

As the negative coverage from the mainstream media has intensified, more and more lawmakers in the House have joined the ranks of the impeachment squad. As of publication, 223 Democrats and one independent in the House of Representatives have called for impeachment proceedings or inquiries, reports CNN. That’s a slim 51.4% majority.

Even if the House voted to impeach, the process would then move to the Senate, where a two-thirds majority (67 votes) would be needed to convict. As it stands, the Republican Party holds the Senate with 53 seats to the Democratic Party’s 45 seats. Given the composition of the deliberative body, a conviction would be highly unlikely.

Even if the two independents who typically roll with the Democratic Party voted to convict, over one-third of Senate Republicans would have to side with the Democrats in order to reach a two-thirds majority.

Barring a serious revelation of provable wrongdoing, most Senate Republicans would publicly vote against impeachment.

However, former Republican Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona made an astonishing claim on Thursday regarding an alleged secret desire among his former colleagues to impeach Trump.

“Somebody mentioned yesterday that if there were a private vote, [there] would be 30 Republican votes,” Flake said at the 2019 Texas Tribune Festival. “That’s not true. There’d be at least 35 — or maybe more if it were a private vote, but that’s not possible.”

Got a tip worth investigating?

Your information could be the missing piece to an important story. Submit your tip today and make a difference.

Submit Tip
The Daily Wire   >  Read   >  Pelosi On Losing The House In 2020 Over Impeachment: ‘Doesn’t Matter’