Former Vice President Kamala Harris on Tuesday cautioned congressional Democrats from moving to impeach President Donald Trump if they prevail in the midterm elections.
“I think that going in the direction of impeachment is not a good idea, just to be honest with you, just because we have limited resources,” Harris told MeidasTouch in an interview published on Tuesday.
“I think the energy and the resources need to be put into accountability, need to be put into investigations,” the Democratic 2024 presidential nominee, who lost to Trump, also said. “And that’s where the time should be spent.”
Harris noted that she was in the Senate during the last attempt to convict Trump following a House impeachment.
The House requires a simple majority to impeach a president, while the Senate requires two-thirds of the upper chamber to vote.
“The votes aren’t there,” she added. “Think after the election, we all have to just also agree that our attitude has to be to get stuff done.”
Trump was impeached twice: once in late 2019 following a whistleblower complaint over a call he held with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and a second time in early 2021, just days after the Jan. 6, 2021, breach of the U.S. Capitol.
Both impeachment attempts failed to meet the two-thirds threshold needed to convict.
In the 2019 attempt, House Democrats alleged Trump engaged in crimes worthy of impeachment over what they claimed was an attempt to pressure Ukraine’s government by using military aid in exchange for investigations into then-Democratic former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
The second impeachment was launched after the Jan. 6 incident, when Democrats and a handful of Republicans accused Trump of trying to incite an insurrection with his remarks before the Capitol breach and after the 2020 election.
The remarks from Harris come amid chatter that Democrats, if they capture the House of Representatives during next week’s election, could move to impeach Trump or a top White House official.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) was asked over the past weekend whether he would support an impeachment resolution that was introduced last month targeting Department of War Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“We’re going to hold him accountable in the same way that we held Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem accountable,” Jeffries, who would be poised to become the next House speaker if Democrats win, told MS NOW on Oct. 24.
He was referring to the Trump administration’s previous attorney general and Homeland Security secretary, respectively.
“And Pete Hegseth needs to be pushed aside by the president, or we’re going to have to deal with that situation if he is not,” Jeffries said, adding that Democrats would attempt to “run him out of town.”
When asked whether he would support the resolution, Jeffries did not commit to impeaching Hegseth.
Instead, the House minority leader said he would be inclined to “act consistently with what [he has] said relative to Pete Hegseth from the very beginning,” which is calling for his firing.
Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who lost his primary bid earlier this year and is leaving the House, introduced a resolution in September to impeach Hegseth and said the conflict with Iran was unlawful, as Congress did not approve it.
Massie also said that the U.S. military engaged in unlawful strikes on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific; an alleged attempt to retaliate against Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), a former armed service member; and in other policy initiatives launched by the Pentagon.
In response to the impeachment proposal, a Pentagon spokesperson told media outlets that Hegseth has acted in the interest of the Department of War—the preferred name used by the Trump administration for the Department of Defense.
“Secretary Hegseth has been a transformative leader for the Department of War. Standards and merit are back, our arsenal is stronger than ever before, and morale and recruitment across every service are at all-time highs,” the spokesperson said.
“Secretary Hegseth has slashed bureaucracy, unleashed innovation, and delivered for our warfighters every step of the way.”
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