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President Donald Trump raised eyebrows Wednesday when he told reporters he “could have done some really bad things” to Hillary Clinton and former Presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama.
Trump made the outlandish claim during an Oval Office announcement touting his “Trump Accounts” for kids after returning to Washington, D.C., from a series of campaign events across the country ahead of the midterm elections. Top Democratic figures are often the target of Trump’s tirades.
At the event, a reporter asked the president about his previous assertion that Democrats would impeach him if they took control of Congress in November.
“For what?” » asked the journalist.
“They don’t know it,” Trump said, before attacking his 2016 rival Clinton and his Democratic predecessors in the White House.
“I could have done really bad things to Hillary Clinton,” Trump began. “I could have done very, very bad things to Joe Biden. I could have done very bad things to Barack Hussein Obama. I thought it was inappropriate to do that because you have to treat the office of the presidency with respect.”
“Then I found out that they indicted me twice and I can certainly, so far, do what I want, if I want,” the president continued. “They did some really bad things.”
“A lot of people said to me: Let’s go get them.” And I said no, you can’t do that as president,” Trump added.
Trump was impeached twice during his first presidency, but was not removed from office by the Senate. Neither Clinton, nor Obama, nor Biden participated in these actions, and the Constitution only gives Congress such impeachment power.
House Speaker Mike Johnson warned that Democrats were “raring to go” and impeach Trump if they reclaim the House in November – which also serves as a rallying cry for him and his party as they face a tough road through the midterms.
“Guaranteed, probably day one — day one or two,” Johnson told conservative commentator and CNN contributor Scott Jennings this week. “Remember, they have already filed articles of impeachment before this Congress.”
A handful of Democrats have launched impeachment proceedings if they win back the House in November, but other members of the party have shut down discussion of the idea.
“This is something that I often think the right-wing media wants us to talk about,” said California Rep. Pete Aguilar, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus. “But it’s not something that’s at the top of the agenda for House Democrats.”
Last month, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Democrats “haven’t ruled anything out” but also added, “we haven’t decided anything.”
Illinois Rep. Brad Schneider, chairman of the New Democratic Coalition, said earlier this year that “we’ve seen it twice already, unless you get a two-thirds majority in the Senate…the president is not going to be removed from office.”
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