Democratic New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker blew off political concerns and pushed hard for impeachment during a Monday evening appearance on “Cuomo Prime Time” on CNN.
Booker spoke with host Chris Cuomo about his struggling presidential campaign and the renewed calls for impeachment, following reports of a whistleblower and the possibility that President Donald Trump may have pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
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“Look, as you said earlier, I’ve already called for impeachment proceedings to begin,” Booker began. “One of the reasons I did was because this administration was stopping information from getting to Congress for Congress to do its job, which is to provide a check and a balance on this president. So he’s not acting when it comes to congressional investigations, subpoenas and documents, he’s not acting like the leader of the free world, he’s acting more like a dictator.” (RELATED: Booker Campaign Calls For Cancellation Of Trump Rally — ‘A Breeding Ground For Racism’)
“You’re not going to get any Republicans to vote to remove this president on the basis of what happened in Ukraine, even if he did hold the money out, even if that’s clear this the transcript, which I don’t think it’s going to be, you’re not going to remove him from office,” Cuomo challenged. “So if you go down a road that you cannot satisfy, where is the political advantage in that or is it about something else?”
“So, Chris, it is about something else. Politics be damned. This is our country!” Booker fired back. “This is our Constitution. 20 years, 40 years from now people will look back at moments like this, what did we do to hold a president accountable?”
“I swore an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution. Forget politics for a moment,” Booker concluded. “He is violating our Constitutional mandate. He’s saying he’s not subject to the checks and balances of our government, which undermines the very ideals of our nation. This is a moral moment and we should do the right thing and hold this president accountable.”
Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reportedly scheduled a meeting Tuesday with the Democratic caucus in order to discuss the possibility of moving forward with impeachment.