Biden addressed potential impeachment while campaigning for Democratic Representative Mike Levin, who is running for re-election in California’s 49th congressional district.
Some Republican members of Congress have already indicated an interest in bringing articles of impeachment against Biden if the GOP takes over the House and possibly the Senate in midterm elections that are just days away.
“I’m already being told if they win back the House and Senate, they’re gonna impeach me,” Biden told a crowd in San Diego. “I don’t know what the hell they’re gonna impeach me for.”
That remark earned a laugh from the audience but Biden continued: “No, I’m not joking.”
“Recently they said ‘we should stop talking about that ’til we win,’” the president added.
Biden may have been referring to a report in The New York Times last week that said some Republicans wanted to “hush” talk about potential impeachment.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who is likely to become speaker if Republicans take the House majority, told Punchbowl News in October: “I think the country doesn’t like impeachment used for political purposes at all.”
Nonetheless, some Republicans have been pushing for Biden to be impeached and control of the House could increase the pressure on the GOP leadership to vote on articles of impeachment.
Last year, Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene introduced a resolution in the House to impeach Biden but with Democrats in control of the chamber, the resolution found limited support.
Republicans would not need a majority in the Senate to impeach Biden. A simple majority is needed in the House to pass articles of impeachment but a two-thirds Senate majority is required to convict and remove a president.
The GOP is currently favored to win the House, according to analysis by poll tracker FiveThirtyEight, but the race for the Senate is a dead heat. Even if Republicans take both chambers, they will not have enough votes in the Senate for conviction.
Potential impeachment inquiries could focus on the business dealings of Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, unfounded claims of fraud in the 2020 presidential election, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and other matters.
Biden isn’t the only person who’s facing potential impeachment. More than 30 House Republicans have co-sponsored a resolution to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, while Representative Greene has previously suggested impeaching Attorney General Merrick Garland.
“The fear for Biden is impeachment,” Mark Shanahan, an associate professor at the University of Surrey in the U.K. and co-editor of The Trump Presidency: From Campaign Trail to World Stage, told Newsweek last week.
“There’s a strong groundswell among Trumpist Republicans to impeach the president around the legitimacy of his 2020 election, exploding his legacy and tilting the 2024 presidential race firmly in favor of the Republican candidate,” he said.
Newsweek has asked the White House for comment.
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