in World News Left-wing billionaire Tom Steyer says that Democrats must focus on impeachment in their campaign to win the midterm elections in November 2018 — and that if they fail, the damage President Donald Trump will do to the country will be too severe to reverse.
Steyer has spent $20 million thus far on a campaign to push Congress to impeach the president, which has included television ads, an online petition, and a plan to hand-deliver 535 copies of Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury: Inside the Trump White House to every elected official on Capitol Hill.
On Monday, Steyer announced a new plan to spend $30 million on helping Democratic candidates defeat incumbent Republicans in the U.S. House, rather than running himself. He has previously said that he will only support candidates who back impeaching the president.
In an interview published Wednesday, Steyer told the Los Angeles Times that while he has abandoned any plans to run for U.S. Senate or for governor in 2018, he could consider a future presidential run — but only after the 2018 midterm elections.
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“I don’t want to spend one second worrying about after that. If I’m spending time worrying about that then I’m not spending time worrying about this,” Steyer said. “If we don’t win on Nov. 6, 2018, we’re screwed. Just screwed. We can let the future take care of itself if we take care of the present.”
Steyer may have reason to believe he will achieve his goal. A new Washington Post analysis released Wednesday suggests that Democrats will take 38 seats from Republicans if current trends continue, restoring the Speaker’s gavel to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and providing more than enough votes to impeach Trump.
The Constitution specifies that impeachment must be for “high crimes and misdemeanors,” but a Democrat majority could construe that clause broadly to achieve Steyer’s goal.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named to Forward’s 50 “most influential” Jews in 2017. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.