The Democratic Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman directly dismissed Republican moves towards impeaching Joe Biden, saying doing so could end up hurting the GOP.
“Go ahead. Do it, I dare you,” Fetterman told reporters on Capitol Hill. “If you can find the votes, go ahead, because you’re going to lose. It’s a loser.
“It would just be like a big circle jerk on the fringe right.”
As Donald Trump faces four separate criminal cases, House Republicans have floated the impeachment of Biden as they investigate his son Hunter’s business dealings. Republicans have been unable to substantiate wrongdoing by either Biden.
Kevin McCarthy, the Republican speaker, suggested last month the House would pursue impeachment if it did not obtain access to certain documents, even though Republicans had never asked for some of the documents at issue, according to the Hill.
“If you look at all the information we have been able to gather so far it is a natural step forward that you would have to go to an impeachment inquiry,” McCarthy told Fox News last month.
The White House has set up a “war room” to respond to the expected impeachment inquiry.
“Your man has, what, three or four indictments now?” Fetterman said on Wednesday. “Trump has a mugshot, and he’s been impeached twice. Sometimes you just gotta call their bullshit. If they’re going to threaten, then let’s see it.”
Impeachment would require a majority vote in the US House – where Republicans have a slim advantage – to formally charge Biden, then a two-thirds vote in the Senate, which is controlled by Democrats, to convict him. It is therefore extremely unlikely to succeed.
Far-right Republicans in the House have agitated for impeaching Biden but those who could face tough re-election battles next fall have been more skeptical.
“So the question to me right now is: do the investigations … are they producing enough facts and evidence that warrant taking it to the next step?” Mike Lawler, a New York Republican in a highly competitive district, told NBC News in August. “I don’t think it’s there at the moment, but these committees are doing their job.”
In the Senate, some more moderate Republicans have also expressed skepticism about impeachment.
“I haven’t seen any evidence at this stage to suggest he’s met the constitutional test for impeachment,” Mitt Romney of Utah told HuffPost this week.
Romney, the 2012 Republican nominee for president, was the only member of his party to vote to convict Trump in both his impeachment trials.
Even on the right of the Republican Senate caucus, enthusiasm for impeachment is scarce. On Wednesday, the Alabama senator Tommy Tuberville, a leading Trump ally, told reporters he was “not for going through another damn trial to be honest with you. [We] did that here with Trump.”
