On Monday’s episode of “The Ben Shapiro Show,” the Daily Wire editor-in-chief talks about Congressman Jeff Van Drew, a New Jersey Democrat who plans on switching to the Republican Party amidst impeachment, and the Democratic Party’s reaction to his decision. Video and partial transcript below:
Meanwhile, Representative Jeff Van Drew, who’s an anti-impeachment Democrat, is now going to switch parties. This demonstrates, again, that these Democrats are not quite as popular on this thing among independents as they say they are.
According to The New York Times:
Representative Jeff Van Drew of New Jersey, a moderate Democrat who is among the party’s staunchest opponents of impeaching President Trump, told aides on Saturday that he is planning to switch parties and declare himself a Republican as soon as next week, just as the House is casting its historic vote on articles of impeachment.
At a White House meeting on Friday, Mr. Van Drew sought Mr. Trump’s blessing for the move, which could be critical to his ability to avoid a primary challenge next year, and the president urged him to make the jump, according to two Democrats and one Republican who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the talks were intended to be private.
Mr. Van Drew has spoken with senior advisers to Mr. Trump about announcing his switch at an event at the White House either immediately before or just after the House votes on two articles of impeachment, which is expected to happen on Wednesday, according to Republicans and Democrats.
Now typically, when a member of a big political party has switched, that’s been big news all the way back to Jim Jeffords switching parties, and the switch in control of the Senate of the United States back in the early 2000s. But this is obviously big news in the middle of an impeachment hearing. You have a guy who is a blue vote in a red district in New Jersey switching parties because he believes that he’s not gonna be able to win re-election if he supports the impeachment.
… the move would also provide a silver lining for Mr. Trump as he becomes the third president ever to be impeached …
The decision by Mr. Van Drew reflects the heavy political consequences hanging over next week’s impeachment vote, particularly for moderate Democrats in districts that supported Mr. Trump in 2016.
About 30 Democrats are sitting in districts that supported Trump, [and] Republicans are targeting those districts heavily, the impeachment vote could come back to haunt all of those people. Jerry Nadler, for his part leading the House Judiciary Committee, ripped into Van Drew, saying that the real reason he’s not doing this, the real reason he’s switching is not out of principle, it’s out of political fear.
NADLER: He’s reacting to the public polling that shows he can’t get renominated in his electorate, his district is 24% to renominate him and 60% to nominate somebody else. To more of the point, this is not political. We should not be looking at those things. This is the defense of our democracy. Do we stay a democratic republic or do we turn into a tyranny?
What is fascinating here is that members of Van Drew’s own constituency — Michael Suleyman, the Atlantic County Democratic chairman, actually wrote a letter to Van Drew, saying [according to the Times] “I’m imploring you to vote in favor of impeachment,” and that “a ‘no’ vote on impeachment will suppress Democratic turnout down-ballot, which my organization cannot sustain.”
In other words, if they tried this impeachment and it turns out to come to nothing, that could actually suppress the Democratic efforts to get out the vote. Everybody is so depressed — and it is interesting, the Democrats are, this early, playing the card that they almost expect Trump to win if he’s not impeached. That’s the only reason they put out there the preventative message that if Trump is elected, it’s illegitimate, because you actually expect that he’s going to win.
Meanwhile in the Senate, Chuck Schumer is attempting to militate, but he has no power in the Senate, so it doesn’t really matter.
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