Pelosi on House impeachment attempt of Mayorkas: ‘Everything they do is about Donald Trump’

Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) took aim at House Republicans on Wednesday for their attempt to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

“Understand this: Everything they do is about Donald Trump. He’s the puppeteer,” she said in an interview with MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, discussing the GOP’s failed impeachment effort Tuesday. “Sadly, as I’ve always said, he’s shining a light on the strings, and it looks terrible. Everything’s about him.”

“So what they’re trying to do — Mayorkas, who is a distinguished public servant, who has honored the law and the policy, executed the law — is they’re trying to cheapen the commodity of what an impeachment is,” Pelosi added.

Three Republicans sided with Democrats on Tuesday evening in a 214-216 vote, tanking Republicans’ chances of impeaching Mayorkas. It was a critical loss for Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and the GOP, who have been vowing to impeach the secretary for months.

Republican Reps. Ken Buck (Colo.), Tom McClintock (Calif.) and Mike Gallagher (Wis.) all voted against the effort Tuesday. A fourth Republican, Rep. Blake Moore (Utah), switched his vote to “no” just before it closed, allowing the conference to bring the legislation back to the floor at another date.

Johnson conceded Wednesday that the failed impeachment vote was a “setback” but said they will pass articles of impeachment “on the next round.”

Pelosi argued that lawmakers should not bring legislation to the floor without knowing where the votes were.

“I always say to my colleagues, now the Republicans in the leadership: Don’t bring the bill to the floor unless you know you have the votes,” she said. “And in order to know you had the votes, you had to have some in your pocket.”