Fox News Host: Republicans Would Impeach Democrat President If 'Shoe On the Other Foot'
Fox News host Steve Doocy pointed out that Republicans would impeach a Democratic president if she or he did the same thing President Donald Trump has done.
Last Wednesday, Trump urged hundreds of his supporters to march to the U.S. Capitol and "fight harder" to overturn the presidential election results, which the president baselessly claims were fraudulent. A mob of pro-Trump rioters then stormed the Capitol, with some threatening to hang Vice President Mike Pence and kill other prominent lawmakers. Democrats, joined by some Republicans, in the House of Representatives plan to impeach Trump a second time on Wednesday for inciting the insurrection.
Discussing the impeachment push during Fox & Friends on Wednesday morning, Doocy said that Republicans would impeach a Democratic head of state if the situation were reversed.
"As we have been doing on this show for over 20 years, let's put the shoe on the other foot. If a Democratic president—a Democrat president did what what happened last week—a week ago today—would the Republicans in the House and the Senate move to impeach him if they could?" the Fox News host asked.
"The answer is yes," Doocy asserted confidently.
Five Republicans in the House of Representatives have come out in favor of impeaching Trump. GOP Congresswoman Liz Cheney of Wyoming, the number three Republican in the House, is the most prominent Republican lawmaker to announce she backs impeachment.
"The President of the United States summoned this mob, assembled the mob, and lit the flame of this attack. Everything that followed was his doing. None of this would have happened without the President. The President could have immediately and forcefully intervened to stop the violence. He did not. There has never been a greater betrayal by a President of the United States of his office and his oath to the Constitution," Cheney said in a Tuesday statement. "I will vote to impeach the President."
Fellow Republican Representatives John Katko of New York, Adam Kinzinger of Illinois, Fred Upton of Michigan and Jaime Herrera Beutler of Washington also said Tuesday that they'd back the impeachment.
"Today the president characterized his inflammatory rhetoric at last Wednesday's rally as 'totally appropriate,' and he expressed no regrets for last week's violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol," Upton pointed out in his Tuesday statement.
"This sends exactly the wrong signal to those of us who support the very core of our democratic principles and took a solemn oath to the Constitution," the GOP congressman said.
While the impeachment vote is expected to pass in the House, with as many as 20 Republicans reportedly open to supporting the article, it's unclear how a Senate trial will move forward. The New York Times, the Associated Press, Axios, Fox News and CNN have all reported that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, a Kentucky Republican, is supportive of the impeachment proceedings. But whether enough Republican senators would defect and vote to convict a president from their political party remains to be seen.
Newsweek reached out to the White House for comment but did not immediately receive a response.
