Kaitlan Collins has warned that President Donald Trump will put up more of a fight than he did in his first term if he is impeached again.
The CNN anchor, appearing Friday on the Pivot with Kara Swisher and Scott Galloway podcast, discussed what may happen if Democrats retake the House and potentially the Senate. Odds for them are tougher in the Senate, though The Cook Political Report last week moved the Texas race from “lean Republican” to a toss-up, and Iowa from toss-up to “lean Democrat.” In July, the same forecaster changed Alaska’s contest from “lean Republican” to a toss-up.
Swisher, citing Jared Kushner’s meeting with Democratic Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to find common ground, predicted that Trump, 80, would “cooperate” with Democrats and try to “reinvent” himself.
Collins took a different view.
“He is going to be in a different world in terms of Washington should the midterms not go his way. It will be a very different time for the Trump presidency,” Collins, 34, said.
“This is my prediction. This is what I’ve heard from reporting. It’s an educated prediction, but we’ll have to—you can’t really predict too much in political reporting, you have to wait and see,” she explained. “I don’t think that they will handle congressional oversight the way they did the first time, and I think that the president hated being impeached so much, even though he expects it and thinks it’ll happen again this time. I think there will be way more pushback from the DOJ and from the White House, even than what we saw the last time around.”
“I think it will be a very different Washington, should the Democrats win and should they try to conduct these investigations, and I don’t think it’s totally clear that we’ll actually see it the same way we saw the first time,” she said.
In his first term, Trump was impeached twice, first for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress, then for incitement of insurrection after Jan. 6. Since taking office last January, Democratic lawmakers have introduced at least three House impeachment resolutions. One resolution cites “abuse of presidential power by calling for the execution of members of Congress” and “abuse of presidential power to intimidate federal judges in violation of the separation of powers and independence of the judiciary.” Another lists 13 articles, including “militarization of domestic law enforcement,” “serial unconstitutional detentions and deportations,” and “retaliation against constitutionally protected speech or association.”
On Monday, Texas Rep. Al Green, who had introduced one of those resolutions last year, filed another one.
Swisher contended that Trump knows his “time is limited,” cited his poor polling on a number of fronts and the Iran war, now in its seventh month.
“Oh, wow. Interesting, because I think he’s going to roll right over,” Swisher said, surprised by Collins. “I think he’s a…I’m not going to say what I think he is, but I think he’s a bully. He gets punched in the nose and he’s gonna stop. I don’t know. Maybe not.”
Trump, in an interview earlier this month with Punchbowl News, didn’t seem to realize why anyone would want him impeached and removed from office.
“It’s hard to believe they could,” he said, while exaggerating his supposed accomplishments.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
