Presidential candidate Andrew Yang said “there’s a chance” impeachment could hurt the 2020 Democratic nominee.
The entrepreneur warned in an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” that Washington’s focus on the impeachment inquiry could impact how successful the nominee is next November.
{mosads}“The downsides of that, the entire country get engrossed in this impeachment process,” Yang said. “And then, we’re gonna look up and be facing Donald Trump in the general election and we will not have made a real case to the American people.”
“Is it going to hurt the Democratic nominee?” host Dana Bash asked.
“There’s a chance that it will,” the candidate responded, noting that several candidates would be called back to Washington in January if the inquiry made it to the Senate, “which would definitely take their focus away from the campaign.”
But Yang said that wouldn’t affect his presence on the campaign trail.
“I would be right here in Iowa or New Hampshire or South Carolina or Nevada or somewhere else campaigning,” he said.
Yang said he supports the impeachment of the president but told CNN that the other candidates spend too much time talking about President Trump and his possible removal from office.
He said during a separate interview on Sunday that when Democrats are talking about Trump, they are not “presenting a new way forward and a positive vision for the country that Americans will get excited about.”
“That’s the only way we’re going to win in 2020 and that’s the only way we’re actually going to start actually solving the problems that got him elected,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Even when we’re talking about impeaching Donald Trump, we’re talking about Donald Trump and we are losing.”
The House had its first vote on the inquiry Thursday, approving along party lines the impeachment inquiry process. The inquiry began when a whistleblower report detailed President Trump’s request to the Ukrainian president to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son.
–This report was updated at 11:15 a.m.