House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) has declined to rule out pursuing the impeachment of President Trump should Democrats reclaim the House majority in November’s midterm elections.
Jeffries made the comments during an appearance on ABC’s This Week, telling host George Stephanopoulos that Democrats have “not ruled anything in and we haven’t ruled anything out in terms of impeachment.”
The remarks came in direct response to Stephanopoulos asking whether House Democrats would pursue impeachment on day one if they returned to the majority following the November vote.
Decision Desk HQ currently gives Democrats a 68 percent chance of retaking control of the House, with the minority party needing to flip a net of just three seats to reclaim the gavel.
Jeffries pointed to Reps. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) and Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) as the figures who would lead accountability efforts against the Trump administration if Democrats win back the chamber.
Raskin and Garcia serve as the respective ranking members of the House Judiciary and Oversight panels, and Jeffries said “both of them are doing a tremendous job” in their current roles.
The comments mark a notable shift from Jeffries’s earlier position in April, when he told Fox News Sunday that impeachment was “of course not” a top priority for Democrats if they regained the House.
At that time, Jeffries said the party’s primary focus would be addressing the high cost of living, framing economic concerns as more urgent than potential proceedings against the president.
Trump responded to the renewed impeachment discussion at a rally in South Carolina, held alongside Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), where he said: “They’re going to impeach me. They have no idea why.”
The president had previously warned House Republicans in January that he would face impeachment if the party failed to hold onto its majority in the midterms.
Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.) has already filed articles of impeachment against Trump related to his conduct on Iran, while roughly 70 Democrats have separately urged Trump’s Cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment.
Despite the growing appetite among some members of the caucus, Democrats have previously acknowledged they lack the votes to successfully remove the president, which contributed to earlier efforts stalling out.
