Amid growing calls from congressional Republicans for President Joe Biden’s removal from office over his administration’s handling of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, the Senate GOP leader said that’s unlikely to happen.
“There isn’t going to be an impeachment,” Senate Minority Leader McConnell said Wednesday at an event in his home state of Kentucky.
“The president’s not going to be removed from office with a Democratic House and a narrowly Democratic Senate, that’s not going to happen,” the Republican leader said.
“I think the way these behaviors get adjusted in this country is at the ballot box,” McConnell said, in the hopes that his party will see favorable results in the 2022 midterm elections. The Kentucky Republican predicted that “buyer’s remorse” with Biden Administration policies will bolster the GOP in the mid-cycle contests.
“The report card is every two years,” McConnell said.
McConnell did not specify what would happen if Republicans took either — or both — chambers of Congress.
The Senate Republican leader’s remarks come one day after the House’s Republican leader, Rep. Kevin McCarthy, sidestepped a question about whether Biden should resign or be impeached.
“I believe, right now, we should get every American home,” Leader McCarthy said at a House GOP press conference Tuesday. “I believe there should be accountability for what I see as probably the biggest failure in American government on a military stage in my lifetime.”
A number of Republican lawmakers in the House and Senate have called for the president to resign or step down over how his administration handled the drawdown of U.S. personnel from Afghanistan.
McConnell also addressed the results of the 2020 election amid former President Donald Trump’s baseless allegations of widespread voter fraud: “There’s always going to be some election fraud, I don’t think there was enough to change the outcome of the election.”
The Kentucky Republican’s remarks come one day after it was announced that he would appear in a new public service announcement aimed at encouraging more Americans to get vaccinated.
McConnell drew on his personal experience battling polio as a child in the 30-second video.
As a boy I fought polio. Today, America’s been polio-free for 40 years thanks to vaccination. We’ll beat COVID-19 with vaccines too. Protect yourself and your family. Get vaccinated. pic.twitter.com/7rtr7cqOD2
— Leader McConnell (@LeaderMcConnell) September 1, 2021
“As a boy, I fought polio,” McConnell said in the PSA. “Today, America’s been polio-free for 40 years, thanks to vaccinations. We’ll beat Covid-19 with vaccines, too. Protect yourself and your family. Get vaccinated.”
