House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries said Wednesday that Democratic Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips, who is challenging President Joe Biden in 2024, is “dead wrong” about the impeachment inquiry being detrimental to the president.
Phillips said in a Monday interview that House Republicans’ impeachment inquiry possibly makes Biden “unelectable” as a general election nominee.
“I don’t see the evidence of it, but yes, when your own son and your own brother are clearly, at the very least unethical and at worst, doing illegal things — my goodness, of course the country pays attention to it,” Phillips told Semafor. “People do believe that it perhaps makes him unelectable — somehow, it conflates him with the Trump family’s indiscretions.”
Jeffries said Phillips is “dead wrong,” arguing Biden has “an incredible track record” to campaign on for the 2024 election.
“I think it’s dead wrong. President Biden has an incredible track record of success,” Jeffries said Wednesday during an interview on CNN. “He’s produced over and over again on issue after issue, from the American Rescue Plan, shots and arms money that gets kids back in school, allowing us to emerge from a once-in-a-century pandemic and put our economy on an incredible path forward. We still have a lot of work to do to build an economy middle-out and the bottom out, but we are moving in the right direction.”
The Republican-led House is expected to vote on formalizing the impeachment inquiry Wednesday afternoon after former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced the launch of the inquiry Sept. 27. The inquiry has investigated Biden’s possible involvement in an influence-peddling scheme related to his son Hunter’s foreign business dealings. (RELATED: Top Democrat Says Joe Biden Was ‘Being A Father’ To Hunter)
A CNN poll found 61% of Americans believe Biden had some involvement in his son’s foreign business dealings and 42% believe he acted illegally. Another 55% think the president acted inappropriately.