Senate Minority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) revealed Democrat plans for next year at a Labor Day parade on Monday when he, using a bullhorn, told a crowd member that he and Democrats intend to impeach President Donald Trump should they gain control of the Congress.
The comments by Schumer are, to date, the most significant and open pledge that Democrats intend to impeach Trump on day one of a Democrat-controlled Congress.
“When are you going to impeach Trump?” a man shouted as Schumer walked by, carrying a bullhorn.
“The sooner the better!” the Senate minority leader fired back.
“The sooner the better? That’s not answering the question,” the man yelled back.
“We got to get a few Republicans,” Schumer replied. “The Democrats are on your side.”
WATCH THE VIDEO OF SCHUMER PLEDGING TO IMPEACH TRUMP HERE:
The issue of impeachment is extraordinarily unpopular, according to extensive polling on the subjet, and hurts Democrats politically in battleground districts and states in House and Senate races nationwide in this year’s midterm elections. That’s why House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi has taken a decidedly more careful approach to the question than Schumer did this weekend, as she has repeatedly shied away from the issue.
“I do not think that impeachment is a policy agenda,” Pelosi said during a CNN town hall earlier this year in March, for instance.
Later, in May at a Politico event, Pelosi said the issue of impeachment is a “distraction.”
“Unless you have bipartisan consensus, impeachment is a divisive issue in the country,” Pelosi said. “Many people would think it’s being done for political reasons.”
She has dodged the question over and over again since then for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is Democrats are afraid of reactivating the same Trump base that elected him in 2016 in a sound defeat of Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton in this year’s midterm elections.
But now Schumer has let the cat out of the bag and revealed what Democrats intend to do should they take control of either chamber of Congress by stating so clearly that Democrats back impeachment of Trump, this may be exactly what Republicans nationwide need to super-charge their base in an effort to–as the Republican National Committee says–“defy history” and hold the House majority while adding seats to their Senate majority.