Trump predicts he will be impeached if Republicans lose the midterms
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump issued a warning to Republicans on Tuesday: If they don’t retain control of Congress in this year’s midterm elections, Democrats will impeach him again.
“You have to win the midterm elections, because if we don’t win the midterm elections, it’ll just be…I mean, they’ll find a reason to impeach me,” Trump said in a speech at a House Republican political retreat. “I’m going to be indicted.”
Trump’s remarks come as polls indicate most voters believe 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 the senators face re-election in November, which could determine whether Republicans will be able to continue implementing 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, although supporters of the move in the Senate failed to secure the two-thirds supermajority needed to convict him in either case.
The president was first impeached in 2019 over accusations that he tried to pressure Ukraine into announcing investigations into then-Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, in part by withholding hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid approved by Congress, to harm Biden’s electoral 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 attempted to overturn his defeat to Biden.
Trump has repeatedly proclaimed his innocence and tried to portray the indictments as politically motivated attacks.
The president’s remarks to House Republicans at the retreat at the newly renamed Trump-Kennedy Center come on the fifth anniversary of the Capitol attack, when rioters broke into the building, attacked law enforcement and called for Trump to be installed as president for another term.
On the first day of his second term, the president issued a blanket pardon to hundreds of people involved in the Jan. 6 riots, 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, even though the president was not on the ballot.
Midterm elections historically favor the party that does not hold the presidency. An NBC News poll from October found that 50% of registered voters prefer Democrats to 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 gained a majority in the House, winning 235 seats, while Republicans retained control of the Senate. The 2018 margins eclipsed those of 2016, a presidential election year, when Democrats won just 194 seats. The 2018 blue wave ultimately paved the way for Democrats to push for two impeachments of the president.
