WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump had a warning for Republicans on Tuesday: If they don't keep control of Congress in this year's midterm elections, Democrats will impeach him again.
"You got to win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, it’s just going to be — I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me," Trump said in a speech at a House Republican policy retreat. "I’ll get impeached."
Polling indicates that most voters feel the country is on the wrong track, with the economy a top concern, less than a year before the midterm elections. All members of the House and a third of senators are up for re-election in November, which could determine whether Republicans are able to continue carrying out their agenda in the final two years of Trump's second term.
Trump is the only president to have been impeached twice in the House; supporters of the move in the Senate didn't have the necessary two-thirds supermajority of votes to convict him in either of the cases.
Trump was first impeached in 2019 on charges stemming from accusations that he tried to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations into then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, in part by withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in congressionally approved military aid, as a way to damage Biden's election chances. Trump was impeached a second time, in 2021, for his role in the events surrounding the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol as he tried to overturn his loss to Biden.
Trump has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence and tried to paint the impeachments as politically motivated attacks.
In the aftermath of the U.S. operation in Venezuela to capture that country's president, Nicolás Maduro, Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., suggested Trump's actions could warrant impeachment.
"Today, many Democrats have understandably questioned whether impeachment is possible again under the current political reality," she said in a statement. "I am reconsidering that view. Even if Republicans refuse to act, Democrats cannot remain silent or passive in the face of actions this extreme from this Administration."
Trump spoke to House Republicans at the retreat at the newly renamed Trump-Kennedy Center on the fifth anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, when rioters broke into the building, attacked law enforcement officers and called for Trump to be installed as president for another term.
On the first day of his second term, he a blanket pardon for the hundreds of people involved in the riot, including those accused or convicted of violent crimes.
NBC News reported in July that Republican operatives planned to use the threat of another Trump impeachment as a way to increase turnout in the midterm elections despite Trump's not being on the ballot.
Midterm elections historically favor the party that doesn't hold the presidency. An NBC News poll in October found that 50% of registered voters prefer that Democrats control Congress, while 42% prefer Republican control, a difference greater than the margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
In the 2018 midterm elections, Democrats surged to the majority in the House, winning 235 seats, while Republicans kept control of the Senate. The 2018 margins dwarfed those in 2016, a presidential election year, when Democrats won only 194 seats. The 2018 blue surge ultimately paved the way for Democrats to push for two impeachments of Trump.
