Nancy Pelosi has been fairly clear over the last several months that she would rather not attempt to impeach President Donald Trump — but with her party’s base and the liberal media heightening their demands, is a reverse of course on the horizon for the House Speaker?
Signs point to no as recent reports have alleged that Pelosi called out the “totally obsessed” mainstream media on Wednesday for pushing the idea of ousting a sitting president.
But with talks of impeachment routinely making their way onto the House speaker’s docket, it looks like Pelosi hasn’t completely ruled out the possibility yet.
To impeach or not to impeach…
Pelosi’s slight against the impeachment-obsessed media came during remarks delivered Wednesday afternoon at a progressive Center for American Progress Ideas Conference.
Her attendance at that conference came within hours of a highly publicized spat with the president at an abruptly canceled White House meeting on infrastructure spending, which came just hours after Pelosi spent the morning talking impeachment with her Democratic House caucus.
Yet, even as Pelosi has held multiple meetings this week to discuss impeachment strategy with her caucus and leadership team — and openly accused the president of a “cover-up” of some unspecified crimes — she still professed to be opposed to impeachment.
Finding the facts
“The press is just totally obsessed with the impeachment part of it. Not obsessed enough to write the particulars of what we’re doing in our committees and how important that is, but just to say, ‘When are you going to do that?'” Pelosi said.
She went on: “Well, if we do, if the facts take us there, that’s where we have to go. It has nothing to do with politics. It’s not about politics, it’s not about passion or prejudice against him. It’s not personal, it’s about patriotism and that the facts will take us where we need to go.”
Pelosi then poured cold water on an emerging narrative from some in her base and the media, who allege that officially launching the impeachment process will provide the House with additional investigative avenues and tools to use against President Trump and his administration.
“I’m not sure that we get any more information by instituting an impeachment inquiry,” Pelosi said. “But if we thought that we would, that’s a judgment that we’d have to make.”
Looking forward
Pelosi knows that if you are going to take a shot at the king — or in this case, the president — you’d better not miss. Indeed, she is well aware of how a failed impeachment effort on her part would backfire horrifically on the Democratic Party in coming elections.
Her innate sense of political self-preservation aside, Pelosi is nevertheless being goaded into pursuing impeachment by her rabid party base and House caucus, not to mention the Trump-hating media, and, it could be argued, even by President Trump himself, who also understands that he would be stronger than ever if he were able to withstand the onslaught of a failed Democratic impeachment effort.
It remains to be seen how Pelosi will handle the growing pressure to impeach going forward. But if she’s ready to make that leap, she better make sure she has all of her ducks in a row.