US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says that a successful impeachment of President Donald Trump would be worth losing the Democrats’ House majority in 2020.
Pelosi’s latest remarks come days after she announced the launch of a formal impeachment inquiry into the president. Nearly all House Democrats have publicly backed the inquiry, though about a dozen have yet to endorse it.
Speaking in an interview at Tribune Fest, hosted by the Texas Tribune, the California Democrat suggested that complying with Congress' mandate to hold the president answerable is more important than politics.
When asked by Tribune CEO Evan Smith whether "any of the stuff we're talking about” would impact her “ability to hold control of the House in 2020," she said, "It doesn’t matter."
"Our first responsibility is to protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
"People say you have to take a political risk doing that. That doesn't matter. That doesn't matter. Because we cannot have a president of the United States undermining his oath of office, his loyalty to his oath of office, undermining our national security, and undermining the integrity of our elections."
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She also said more Americans now favor the impeachment inquiry against Trump.
“In the public, the tide has completely changed; it could change now - who knows - but right now after seeing the complaint and the IG (Inspector General) report and the cavalier attitude the administration had towards it, the American people are coming to a different decision," Pelosi said at the journalism event.
In a recent Hill-HarrisX poll, 47 percent of respondents said they supported the move, while 42 percent said they opposed it.
Also, a NPR-PBS NewsHour-Marist survey found that 49 percent of American adults favored impeachment, whereas 46 percent disliked the idea.
Support for the move surged following revelations this week that Trump had pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to look into former Vice President Joe Biden and had temporarily held up aid for the country over the summer.
Trump has denied wrongdoing, claiming that he held up the aid because he wanted other countries to contribute more to Ukraine's defense, while Democrats argue the move amounted to the president seeking help from a foreign power against a political rival.
The White House released a memo of the July call between the presidents in which Trump encouraged Zelensky to look into Biden, the Democratic presidential front-runner.
While many Republicans have yet to weigh in regarding the impeachment inquiry, one GOP lawmaker has expressed support for investigating the allegations over Ukraine.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
