Journalist and political analyst Bill Schneider said on Wednesday that November’s midterm elections will be a referendum on impeaching President Trump.
“I think the central issue in this election is going to impeachment. It’s all going to be a referendum on impeachment,” Schneider told Hill.TV’s Jamal Simmons on “What America’s Thinking.”
“Every Democrat will be under pressure running for the House to say, to declare ‘I’m going to vote to impeach the president.’ And every Republican is going to warn that if you elect a Democrat there’s going to be impeachment,” he continued.
Schneider said impeachment is now a central issue in the campaign due to Trump’s former fixer Michael Cohen’s statement on Tuesday that he broke campaign finance laws “in coordination and at the direction of a candidate for federal office,” which was an indirect reference to Trump.
“When impeachment is an issue, it eats up the entire agenda. There is no other issue,” Schneider said.
Some Democratic lawmakers such as Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and Al Green (D-Texas) have called for Trump’s impeachment.
Trump himself has warned that Democrats will vote to impeach him if they take back the House in November.
“We have to keep the House because if we listen to Maxine Waters, she’s going around saying ‘We will impeach him,’ ” Trump said.
However, other Democrats have urged more caution on the issue.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Wednesday that impeachment was not a priority for Democrats in the wake of Cohen’s guilty plea.
“Impeachment has to spring from something else,” Pelosi said. “If and when the information emerges about that, we’ll see,” she added.
“It’s not a priority on the agenda going forward unless something else comes forward.”
— Julia Manchester
hilltv copyright