House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) just spoke out to shoot down her own party’s efforts to impeach President Donald Trump, saying that the public “isn’t there” on impeachment.
Breitbart reported [1] that during a caucus-wide call on Friday, Pelosi told Democrats that the public “isn’t there” yet on impeachment, despite growing support among Democrats in the House. She also restarted her frequent point that Democrats need to follow the “facts” and to ask her colleagues for “leverage” to ensure their impeachment argument is “as strong as it can be” if the time for action comes.
“The public isn’t there on impeachment. It’s your voice and constituency, but give me the leverage I need to make sure that we’re ready and it is as strong as it can be,” Pelosi reportedly said. “The equities we have to weigh are our responsibility to protect and defend the Constitution and to be unifying and not dividing. But if and when we act, people will know he gave us no choice. If he cannot respect the Constitution, we’ll have to deal with that. It’s about patriotism, not partisanship.”
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“I myself have a nightguard, cause I find it very hard not to grind my teeth all night about what’s going on in the White House,” she continued.
Meanwhile, @SpeakerPelosi [3] on a call with House Dems speaks to impeachment, given the growing list of her members who support an inquiry.
Her first point, and perhaps the most important: “The public isn’t there on impeachment.”
— Rachael Bade (@rachaelmbade) August 23, 2019 [4]
Though more than half of the Democrat caucus supports impeachment, the numbers show that the American public is not onboard. A Monmouth University Polling Institute poll released [5] last week showed that 59 percent of Americans disagree that Trump should be impeached and compelled to leave the presidency. Meanwhile, just 35 percent of Americans feel that Trump should be impeached and compelled to leave. This number is at an all-time low since Monmouth first started asking that question back in 2017.
On top of that, 51 percent of Americans say it is not a good idea for the House Judiciary Committee to conduct an impeachment inquiry, compared to 41 percent who said it is a good idea.
On impeachment, Pelosi told Rep. Watson-Coleman “the public isn’t there” and asked her to “give me the leverage I need to make sure that we’re ready and it is as strong as it can be.”
“But if and when we act, people will know he gave us no choice.”
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) August 23, 2019 [6]
Despite this, many liberal activists are becoming impatient with Pelosi. On Wednesday liberal protesters crashed an event honoring the speaker at a San Francisco hotel Wednesday, shouting things like “Nancy Pelosi, do your job!” and holding signs that read, “Which side are you on, Pelosi? Impeach!”