Residence vice president house inside12/9/2023 ![]() “I think it’s more of a messaging thing to please Trump,” one senior GOP aide said. It’s a huge strategic risk.”įor now, some in McCarthy’s leadership team are under the impression that a vote won’t happen, with one person calling it “too divisive.” And though McCarthy has publicly backed the push, senior Republicans speculate that his words were merely an attempt to curry favor with the former president. “The problem is: If you have an expungement, and it goes to the floor and fails - which it probably will - then the media will treat it like it’s a third impeachment, and it will show disunity among Republican ranks. “I’m for Trump,” one senior GOP member tells Playbook. Some senior Republicans - even those who back Trump - worry that an expungement vote would expose divisions in their ranks and only embarrass Trump if the effort comes up for a vote and loses. Then, beyond the skittish moderates who’d prefer not to take the vote, there’s the clutch of constitutionally minded conservatives - who, we are told, have privately voiced skepticism that the House has the constitutional authority to erase a president’s impeachments. David Valadao (R-Calif.) and Dan Newhouse (R-Wash.) - voted to impeach Trump, and are unlikely to support expungement. It’s also unclear whether an expungement vote even has enough support to pass the House, given the GOP’s slim five-seat majority. From McCarthy’s point of view, he merely indicated that he would discuss the matter with his members - putting him and Trump on a collision course. The speaker has denied that he made such a promise to Trump at all, according to one Hill aide. Given the speaker’s tenuous position with Trump allies in the House and the threat of his ouster looming over every move, McCarthy has no real option but to bow to the former president’s whims - even if it means putting vulnerable frontliners in a precarious political position. 6 attack, several more wanted to but were too worried about threats to their offices and families to take the plunge.)īut should McCarthy follow through, those members won’t have a choice. (In fact, though only 10 of their GOP colleagues voted with Democrats to impeach Trump after the Jan. Several moderate House Republicans are loath to revisit Trump’s impeachments - especially the charges stemming from the Jan. But it has also put McCarthy in a bind - and Trump world plans to hold him to his promise. That vow - made reflexively to save his own skin - may have bought McCarthy some time, staving off a public war with the man who almost single-handedly rehabilitated his entire career and ensured he won the gavel in January. And - as McCarthy would communicate through aides later that same day - they would do so before August recess. To calm Trump, McCarthy made him a promise, according to a source close to Trump and familiar with the conversation: The House would vote to expunge the two impeachments against the former president. But the House GOP leader - who has felt compelled to stay neutral during the primary so as to not box in his own members - wasn’t ready to do that. ![]()
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