Former President Donald Trump's increasingly strident push for President Joe Biden’s impeachment is a growing problem for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and vulnerable Republican congressmen, who find themselves in a difficult situation politically, Punchbowl News reported on Monday.
McCarthy and the House Republican leadership have attempted to walk a very narrow line on the subject of pursuing Biden's impeachment, but Trump appears determined to force them into action.
Having Trump threaten to primary next year's election Republican vulnerables, who are not very eager to sign onto any impeachment push, is potentially disastrous for McCarthy and the GOP leadership.
Rep. Don Bacon, however, defended the speaker and said that “McCarthy is in the right spot on this."
The Nebraska Republican pointed out that McCarthy "said last [Wednesday] that the Judiciary and Oversight Committees will continue to investigate the most recent allegations [against Biden], which are serious.
"He said it is too early for an impeachment inquiry. I believe the speaker is right. Let’s not follow [former] Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s example by cutting corners on impeachment.”
Only a small percentage of House Republicans are currently backing the various impeachment resolutions against Biden that have been introduced already, although the demand for action is growing every day on the right.
As part of the increasing push, Trump’s latest comments are his most aggressive yet in warning McCarthy about the fallout for the speaker if serious impeachment action doesn’t happen soon.
Democratic Rep. Gerry Connolly dismissed Trump’s latest demands as just more inflammatory rhetoric, with the Virginia congressman and senior member of the House Oversight Committee stating that in addition to the former president's "expertise in deceit, deflection and dissembling, we can now add compartmentalization to Trump’s repertoire."
Connolly said that Trump "conveniently fails to cite his own impeachment, his own statements on emails, his own chants of ‘Lock her up!’ This will force GOP cognitive dissonance on steroids.”