Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had words of warning for House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi – don’t try to impeach President Donald Trump as such a move backfired on the GOP in the 1990s.
‘Presidential harassment,’ he warned, can be a losing proposition for the party in control on Capitol Hill.
‘The business of presidential harassment – which we were deeply engaged in in the late 90s – improved the president’s approval rating and tanked ours,’ McConnell said a press conference at the Capitol on Wednesday.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had words of warning for House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi – don’t try to impeach President Donald Trump as such a move backfired on the GOP in the 1990s
Nancy Pelosi is expected to be House Speaker next year after Democrats won the majority
Democrats are vowing to investigate Trump’s financial records and some have talked about impeachment proceedings
‘The whole issue of presidential harassment is interesting,’ he noted. ‘I remember when we tried it in the late ’90s. We impeached President Clinton. His numbers went up and ours went down, and we underperformed in the next election.’
‘So the Democrats in the House will have to decide just how much presidential harassment they think is a good strategy,’ McConnell added. ‘I’m not so sure it’ll work for them.’
The Senate Republican leader was basking in the glow of victory on Wednesday, after his party picked up at least three seats in the Senate: North Dakota, Missouri, and Indiana.
Races in Montana, Arizona, and Florida are too close to call.
‘It’s a rare opportunity to see McConnell smile,’ the famously stoic Senate leader joked, his face cracking into a rare grin.
He said he has spoken to House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, who is expected to be speaker next year after her party won control of the lower chamber on Tuesday.
Democrats have made rumblings about challenging her leadership but a serious contender has yet to emerge and she has given no indication she will loosen her iron grip on her caucus.
Democrats, however, are vowing to start investigating President Trump, particularly his financial records and some liberals have whispered about impeachment.
McConnell advised Pelosi not to go that route, pointing out Republicans suffered after the House voted for articles of impeachment against then President Bill Clinton in 1998. The Senate acquitted him of the charges.
In December 1998, Clinton’s approval rating has jumped 10 points to 73 percent after the House invoked two articles of impeachment, according to a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll at the time.
And the unfavorable view of the Republican Party jumped 10 points.
Democrats did not win control of the House in the 1998 midterms, but they were able to hold off losses typically experienced by a sitting president’s party. The party ended up picking up four seats.
Before the election, Pelosi sounded a note of caution about what the Democrats would do if power swung back their way, saying she didn’t like the word ‘impeachment’ – something that would disappoint the far left in the party, who are eager to see impeachment proceedings being against Trump.
Democrats would ‘make sure we are exercising our balance of power,’ she said, adding she hears on the campaign trail that people want ‘checks and balances’ in the federal government.
She dismissed talk by liberals that Trump should be impeached – either over any potential finding that his campaign colluded with Russia in 2016 or over something in his financial records, which she has Democrats will request should they take control of the House.
‘Impeachment – to use that word – is very divisive. That isn’t a path I would like to go down,’ she said.
McConnell said impeachment proceedings against Bill Clinton backfired on the GOP
President Trump repeatedly invoked Kavanaugh’s name when he campaigned in states he won in 2016 for GOP Senate candidates, like Josh Hawley in Missouri
McConnell also said he thought the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was ‘like an adrenaline shot’ for his party in the final days of the election.
President Trump repeatedly invoked Kavanaugh’s name when he campaigned in states he won in 2016 for GOP Senate candidates, proving a winning strategy in Missouri, North Dakota and Indiana where the three Democratic incumbents voted against Kavanaugh.
Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia – the only Democrat to support Kavanaugh’s confirmation – won reelection.
‘It was like an adrenalin shot. We were worried about lack of intensity on our side and I think the Kavanaugh fight certainly provided that,’ McConnell said.
Legislatively, the Senate GOP leader said he hoped the government would not shut down during the upcoming funding fight.
‘Hopefully we’ll not be headed down that path,’ he said.
Funding for the government runs out Dec. 7. Partial funding for the government has been approved but major areas – including Homeland Security – still need their 2019 funding approved.
And a battle over Trump’s border wall could be the first item on the agenda when Congress returns to Washington D.C. after the election.
‘We certainly going to try to help the president achieve what he’d liked he to with the wall and border security,’ McConnell said when asked if he could get the $5 billion needed to build the wall
McConnell said he thought the confirmation process for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh was ‘like an adrenaline shot’ for his party
McConnell said the election results brought a ‘rare smile’ to his face
But, he cautioned, it would ‘have to be done with bipartisan votes.’
That could be different with Democrats in control on the other side of Capitol Hill. The party has long said it wants a resolution for Dreamers, young illegals brought to the country by their parents as children, as part of the package.
And, speaking at Harvard University’s Institute of Politics before the election, Pelosi said the president’s wall was ‘immoral.’
‘It’s immoral, expensive, ineffective and not something people do between countries,’ she said. ‘In any event, it happens to be like a manhood issue for the president, and I’m not interested in that.’
She said there was ‘nothing’ she would trade on her agenda in order to let the president build his billion-dollar wall.
But McConnell thanked the president for his helping in keeping the Senate in GOP control.
President Trump held 11 rallies in six days in the lead up to election day, focused heavily on Senate races.
‘I want to thank the president. He was extremely helpful to us in states where he is in excellent shape,’ McConnell said.
‘He worked very hard and brought out crowds,’ he said. ‘He clearly had an impact.’
McConnell cracked another rare smile when he was asked about Senate Democrats who were looking at challenging Trump in 2020, saying they were likely to be a problem for Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.
‘It’s going to be fun to watch the democratic presidential aspirants, which we have a number in the Senate, and Chuck may have a number of absences to worry about – but it’ll be fun to watch,’ he said.