House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) will lose the majority in the House of Representatives, President Donald Trump said on Dec. 23 following the Dec. 18 vote to impeach him.
Trump wrote on Twitter: “Pelosi gives us the most unfair trial in the history of the U.S. Congress, and now she is crying for fairness in the Senate, and breaking all rules while doing so.”
“She lost Congress once, she will do it again!”
Pelosi gives us the most unfair trial in the history of the U.S. Congress, and now she is crying for fairness in the Senate, and breaking all rules while doing so. She lost Congress once, she will do it again!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 23, 2019
The House could flip in the November 2020 elections, which will also decide whether Trump remains in office or a Democrat wins back the White House.
Pelosi, 79, was first elected as speaker of the House in 2007 for the 110th Congress. Democrats held the House for that Congress and the next but lost the majority in 2013 and didn’t gain it back until 2019.
The party currently has a 232–197 majority after Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.) switched parties over qualms about impeachment.
Trump and other top Republicans have assailed Pelosi for making the unprecedented decision to not submit the articles of impeachment to the Senate after voting to impeach Trump, leading some scholars to assert Trump isn’t actually impeached as of yet.
Trump wrote in a tweet on Dec. 22 that Pelosi is trying to use the articles as leverage against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.).
“Crazy Nancy wants to dictate terms on the Impeachment Hoax to the Republican Majority Senate, but striped [sic] away all Due Process, no lawyers or witnesses, on the Democrat Majority House. The Dems just wish it would all end. Their case is dead, their poll numbers are horrendous!” he said.
He has repeatedly called the impeachment inquiry a “scam” and a “witch hunt.”
Pelosi, meanwhile, said early Dec. 23 that the House wouldn’t submit the articles until Democrat leaders are made aware of how the trial will go in the Senate.
“The House cannot choose our impeachment managers until we know what sort of trial the Senate will conduct. President Trump blocked his own witnesses and documents from the House, and from the American people, on phony complaints about the House process. What is his excuse now?” she wrote on Twitter.
The House cannot choose our impeachment managers until we know what sort of trial the Senate will conduct.
President Trump blocked his own witnesses and documents from the House, and from the American people, on phony complaints about the House process. What is his excuse now?
— Nancy Pelosi (@SpeakerPelosi) December 23, 2019
Democrats impeached Trump on Dec. 18, accusing him of abusing the office of the presidency and obstructing Congress. Four Democrats didn’t vote or voted against at least one article of impeachment.
The Senate has the sole authority to hear charges outlined in impeachment articles, according to the Constitution. Managers, or representatives, of the House present the case against the president, who has representatives present his defense. The Senate at some point can vote to dismiss the case—with a simple majority—or vote to convict on the articles. A conviction, which would remove a president from office, requires a supermajority, or at least two-thirds of the senators present at the time of the vote.
Republicans control the Senate 53–47, and no Republican members have said they would vote to convict Trump.
