Rep Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) decried Republican efforts to impeach President Joe Biden, saying the House should do more important work.
On Tuesday, Rep Lauren Boebert (R-CO) announced she would introduce a privileged resolution to impeach Mr Biden. But Ms Ocasio-Cortez said that it would be a waste of time to do so.
“I mean, they don't have any grounds,” Ms Ocasio-Cortez told The Independent. “They don't have any legislation. They're doing this because they can't even agree amongst themselves that what to put on the floor.”
Ms Ocasio-Cortez serves as the number-two Democrat on the House Oversight & Accountability Committee, where Chairman James Comer (R-KY) is leading an investigation into Mr Biden and his family, including the president’s son Hunter Biden.
But Jared Moskowitz (D-FL), a freshman Democrat on the committee, noted how fellow far-right bomb-thrower Rep Marjorie Taylor Greene has introduced resolutions of impeachment not just against Mr Biden but also against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
“But you know what, let them put their money where their mouth is, let them go ahead,” he told The Independent. “You know why they're not gonna do it? Because they know the American people aren't gonna stand for it.”
Rep Maxwell Frost (D-FL) said the attempt to impeach the president showed a disconnect with voters.
“They should talk with their constituents and if they've knocked on a single door in their life, they would realize that people want to talk about affordable housing, health care, gun violence, climate crisis, jobs, wages, prices, and not wasting time on things like impeaching President Biden, for what for being the president,” he told The Independent.
Ms Ocasio-Cortez said she did not welcome the vote for impeachment because it wasted valuable time.
“I don't welcome it because I think we should actually be working for real issues that matter,” she said, adding that there would be consequences for Republicans. “Absolutely. They will show their extremism.”
Progressives are not the only Democrats who say impeachment would be a bad idea. Rep Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), a moderate who represents a swing district, said she has yet to hear a single person in her district bring up the subject. The proposed impeachment also comes as the House is working on censuring Rep Adam Schiff (D-CA).
“And I think that the American people are worried about, you know, everyday people issues and, and certainly we just continue to see out of touch efforts between like multiple censures and you know, an impeachment without grounds and, you know, there's a lot more that we could be doing that actually meet the needs of the people that we represent,” she told The Independent.
Rep Madeleine Dean (D-PA), who served as an impeachment manager for former president Donald Trump’s second impeachment after the January 6 riot, told The Independent it would backfire, noting how many people are abandoning the former president.
“It’s only a matter of time before they all wind up in that same spiral downward with Mr Trump,” she said.
