Yang cautions Democrats: Impeachment might not be ‘successful’

Businessman Andrew Yang, a 2020 Democratic candidate for president, said in a new interview that he remains skeptical that the Republican-held Senate would vote to convict President Trump if the House were to impeach him.

Yang told NPR on Saturday that Democrats should not have “any illusions” about an impeachment trial successfully resulting in Trump’s removal.

{mosads}”I think impeachment is the right way to go, but I do not think that we should have any illusions that it’s necessarily going to be successful,” he told NPR. The conversation, Yang added, only served to benefit the president ahead of a contentious reelection battle.

“When we’re talking about Donald Trump, we are losing to Donald Trump, even if it’s in the context of talking about impeaching him,” Yang said.

Yang indicated support for the House’s impeachment inquiry last month when he tweeted that impeachment was the “right” move for the Democratic-controlled House to take after news broke that Trump has asked Ukraine’s president to launch an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden, one of Yang’s competitors for the Democratic nomination.

“Given the President’s latest actions I think impeachment is the right path forward. Asking foreign leaders for political help in return for aid and then suppressing your own agency’s inquiry is egregious,” Yang tweeted late last month.

“There have to be limits and Congress is right to act,” he continued.

Yang has also previously warned that such a move will inflame the president’s base, and would be “impractical” due to the low chance of success in the Senate.

“Given the current composition of Congress, impeachment would almost certainly not succeed. And then you would wind up inflaming a certain proportion of the president’s base with this persecution complex no matter what he does after a failed impeachment process.” Yang said earlier in September. “It’s impractical to champion impeachment just based upon the fact that Republicans still hold so many seats in Congress.”