President Donald Trump brushed aside the possibility of Democrats retaking Congress in the midterm elections, joking that he has been through impeachment so many times that he is “getting good” at it.
Trump made the remark Friday while speaking with reporters outside the White House as he headed to a rally in Alabama.
One reporter asked the president about his warning that Democrats would move to impeach him if they won control of Congress.
“You’re saying now that if Democrats win control of Congress, they will impeach you. But you’ve already been impeached twice, so what’s a third time?” the reporter asked.
Trump responded with a quip.
“Well, I don’t know, but I’m getting good at it,” he said.
The president then dismissed the effort as illegitimate and argued that Republicans have shown restraint in situations where they could have taken similar action against Democrats.
“It’s a fake impeachment, and we could’ve done that with ‘Sleepy’ Joe [Biden], but we didn’t do it because it wouldn’t have been appropriate,” Trump said.
He also brought up Hillary Clinton.
“I could’ve done that with Hillary Clinton, as you know. I had the chance to do it if I wanted, and I said, ‘That would be inappropriate,’ but with me, they like to do it,” Trump said.
Trump was impeached twice during his first term, first in 2019 and again in 2021. The Senate acquitted him both times.
His reference to Clinton appears to mirror an argument Republicans raised during his second impeachment trial. At the time, then-Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican, warned that putting a former president on trial could set a precedent opening the door to a future impeachment of the former secretary of state.
When it comes to the midterms, recent polling has given Republicans reason to worry.
On Wednesday, CNN chief data analyst Harry Enten said Democrats hold an average lead of nine points over Republicans in national congressional polling. That is up from a lead of just three points a year ago, Enten said. The current margin is the party’s largest since 2008, the year Democrats won both the House and the Senate.
Enten did not mince words about what the numbers could mean for the GOP.
“Sirens should be going off at any of the national Republican Senatorial Committee or Congressional Committee headquarters because these are numbers that Democrats should be salivating over and should strike real fear into Republicans nationwide,” he said.
Despite those warning signs, Trump appeared unbothered by the prospect of facing a third impeachment. The president framed any future effort as another “fake” attack, while arguing that Republicans had passed on opportunities to pursue similar action against Biden and Clinton because doing so would have been inappropriate.
With the midterms approaching, the president’s comments suggest he is prepared to make the threat of impeachment part of his message to voters as Republicans work to hold on to control of Congress.
