Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain poured cold water on the impeachment frenzy Monday night, telling radio show host Mike Broomhead at Phoenix’s KFYI that there aren’t enough votes for a conviction.
“We’re not gonna impeach the president of the United States, because we don’t have 67 votes in the United States Senate to do so,” McCain said.
Ever since McCain’s own former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin started calling for President Obama’s impeachment over his handling of the border crisis, the possibility has been embraced by a handful of far-right conservatives and become a blockbuster talking point for both pundits and political strategists.
“I think the Democrats view this as a good propaganda — see how radical the Republicans are, they want to impeach the president,” McCain added.
His remarks were echoed by House Speaker John Boehner, who said on Tuesday the party had “no plans” to impeach Obama and called the idea “a scam started by Democrats at the White House,” despite his own push to sue the president over his implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
McCain voiced support for Boehner’s lawsuit and said the party should be focusing on electing more Republicans to the Senate, not impeachment.
“Let’s devote our efforts to electing a Republican Senate and then we will be able to stop this misbehavior,” he said.
But McCain didn’t back away from his previous criticism of the president’s use of executive action, which Republicans have long derided as an abuse of power.
“I do believe the President has broken more laws by executive order — let me put it this way, I think he’s abused the executive branch in a way I don’t recall any other President doing that, by these executive orders that are just directly contrary to the law,” he added.
Jane Timm