President Donald Trump warned on Tuesday that he could be impeached if Republicans do not win the majority in the House during the midterm elections later this year.
“You got to win the midterms,” Trump told the House GOP caucus at the Trump-Kennedy Center in Washington at an event that was part of a retreat for the Republican lawmakers. “They’ll find a reason to impeach me. I’ll get impeached.”
Republicans will not “impeach them because you know why? Because they’re meaner than we are,” the president said, referring to Democrats. “We should have impeached Joe Biden for a hundred different things.
“They are mean and smart.”
“If we lose the House majority, the radical left as you’ve already heard is going to impeach President Trump,” Johnson said, “They’re going to create absolute chaos. We cannot let that happen.”
During his first term, Trump was impeached twice. Once was in 2019 over allegations that he engaged in a quid pro quo scheme with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a phone call, and the other occurred in early 2021 in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol breach.
He was acquitted both times when the impeachment cases reached the Senate. Trump denied wrongdoing in both instances, describing the House impeachment inquiries as politically motivated.
In order to impeach a president, the House only needs a simple majority. The threshold is set much higher in the Senate, requiring a two-thirds majority to convict a sitting president. Republicans currently have a 53–47 advantage in the upper chamber.
The president on Tuesday also urged his fellow Republicans to work together in a more unified fashion on issues ranging from transgender-related issues to healthcare and election reforms, and to promote his policies about the cost of living.
Trump’s agenda is on the line in November’s elections, when all the seats in the House of Representatives and roughly a third of the Senate’s seats will be contested. In November, Democrats saw victories in several states and municipalities, prompting the Trump administration to pivot to a message about reducing the cost-of-living and promoting his economic agenda.
Several Democratic lawmakers, including Reps. Al Green (D-Texas) and Shri Thanedar (D-Mich.), have said they would try to impeach Trump. But the House voted to set aside two impeachment efforts launched by Green last year.
After the Trump administration’s decision to carry out a military operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, multiple Democratic lawmakers floated the prospect of impeachment.
