Pelosi tamps down talk of president’s impeachment
WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi sought to quell a rising furor Sunday over whether Democratic lawmakers will seek to impeach President Donald Trump, saying in an interview on CBS News’ “Sunday Morning” that the public has yet to hear the conclusions of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
Democrats are unlikely to pursue a path of impeachment without Republican backing, Ms. Pelosi hinted. That could hinge significantly on whether Mr. Mueller’s probe uncovers concrete evidence of wrongdoing.
“If and when the time comes for impeachment,” she said, “it will have to be something that has such a crescendo in a bipartisan way.”
Ms. Pelosi’s remarks come amid days of Democratic infighting after newly elected Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., vowed at a progressive gathering on Thursday to “impeach the m-----------,” referring to Mr. Trump.
Many of Ms. Tlaib’s colleagues have cautioned against moving too quickly toward impeachment. Rep. Adam Smith, D-Wash., on Sunday told ABC News that impeaching Mr. Trump would be “an unbelievably serious undertaking.”
“We need to be very deliberate, very careful and very serious about how we do this,” he said. “We need to see Mueller’s report, and we need to make a very, very strong case if there is one to be made.”
Others said that while House lawmakers could “line up the votes,” a bid for impeachment would be fruitless without Republican support in the Senate.
“If the Republican senators, at least some of them, are not on board, then all you have is a failed impeachment, and I don’t think that benefits the country,” Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Sunday on CNN.
In Washington, a wave of shock accompanied Ms. Tlaib’s use of profanity. Sen. Doug Jones, D-Ala., told CNN on Sunday that even his most progressive constituents “know better” than to use “the coarse language the president uses in public.” For her part, Ms. Pelosi said Friday that although she did not agree with Ms. Tlaib’s choice of words, it was not “anything worse” than what Mr. Trump has said.
But Mick Mulvaney, Mr. Trump’s acting chief of staff, rejected the idea that Mr. Trump has helped coarsen the public discourse.
“I don’t think anybody blames the president for the coarsening of the language,” Mr. Mulvaney told CNN on Sunday.
Still, some of Ms. Tlaib’s colleagues have come to her defense. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, DN.Y., a fellow freshman, tweeted Saturday, “I got your back,” and accused Republicans of working themselves into “faux-outrage.”
“Republican hypocrisy at its finest: saying that Mr. Trump admitting to sexual assault on tape is just ‘locker room talk,’ but scandalizing themselves into faux-outrage when my sis says a curse word in a bar,” Ms. Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.