Trump is 'not building things that a long-term Republican Party can thrive on': Rep. Don Beyer
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Congressman Don Beyer (D-VA) joins Yahoo Finance's Kristin Myers to break down his thoughts on the latest DC developments, as the House impeaches Trump for a second time.
Video Transcript
KRISTIN MYERS: Now, I want to bring on Democratic Congressman Don Beyer from Virginia who voted in favor of impeaching the president. And we just heard those updates from Jess, at least on the impeachment front. And if the Senate trial happens after the inauguration of President-elect Biden, it will be history making to be voting to remove the president from office who is no longer in office.
So, Congressman, you've called President Trump a clear and present danger. And, of course, the timing of this Senate trial is unclear. Now, even if the Senate votes to convict, if it happens after the inauguration of President-elect Biden, the primary point would then have to be to prevent him from occupying the Office of the Presidency again, as he's no longer in office anymore.
I'm wondering if you think that you can get enough of your Senate Republican colleagues to go along with that. It has to be a separate vote. For everyone at home who's not aware, it's not an automatic thing that if the Senate convicts that he can't run again. That has to be a separate vote. Do you think you can get enough Senate Republicans to go along with that?
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DON BEYER: Kristin, I'm actually more optimistic that we could do that than that we can get the 2/3 necessary to convict. You're right. We need to sort of break it down into three pieces. There's first the removal from office, which is moot because Donald Trump will already have been removed from office.
The second is the disqualification from further office. I'm not a constitutional scholar, but there are instances in the past where a simple majority of the Senate was sufficient to disqualify. And then, there are many members who are concerned about his continued benefits as the next president, the huge transportation budget, Secret Service. I'm not quite sure the Senate will want to go that far as to take them away, but certainly people are talking about that.
KRISTIN MYERS: Now, I want to turn to how you're going to be able to move in this next congressional session with some of the new colleagues that you have, Republican colleagues. You tweeted out a video of Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, and you said-- I'm going to quote you here. You said, "Imagine having to go to work with this person." Now, there's others like her in Congress right now.
I'm wondering how you imagine moving forward working across the aisle with the folks who, like the Congresswoman-- we see her in a mask in this photo, but she often is seen not wearing a mask, talks about how she doesn't want to wear a mask. How do you work with folks who don't want to wear a mask in the midst of a pandemic, refuse to accept the truth and the evidence that President-elect Biden, frankly, won fair and square with no evidence to the contrary? How do you work with Republicans like that?
DON BEYER: Well, with people like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert from Colorado and even some of the older folks around, Louie Gohmert from Texas, Andy Biggs from Arizona, they've always been difficult to work with. The good news is, though, that we had 10 Republicans vote for impeachment. Many more said they would except they were afraid either for their families or for the political consequences.
I serve on the Ways and Means Committee, and I really don't have any fear about working with any of them being able to move forward. In any organization, there are people at the fringe, and they're going to be tough. But I think there'll be enough people willing to go forward together that we can get good things done.
KRISTIN MYERS: So I'm glad you mentioned that point of folks on the fringe. Obviously, Congress has well over 400 members, and so one or two members is not going to slow down anything for you guys. But I want to call this poll, this really interesting poll with the numbers from Axios, where 64% of Republicans said that they support Trump's recent behavior. So we're looking at what happened right before those riots at the Capitol.
57% of Republicans, according to this Axios poll, said that Trump should be the 2024 Republican candidate for president. Obviously, that's the Senate trial notwithstanding, given that vote. I'm wondering if you think that some of your Republican colleagues are going to have to, in some measure, maintain Trumpism in order to hold onto their seats, especially in advance of the 2022 midterm elections.
DON BEYER: I think that's certainly plausible, especially the redder the seat. You know, people that won with 80% or 90% may feel that they have to do that to avoid a primary. But my deep hope is that there are enough Republican existing members and future members who think about the long-term future of the Republican Party.
With Donald Trump-- in fact, one of the interesting things as we talk about polling is they looked at the 75 million, a subset of it, and found that people were far more devoted to Donald Trump than they were to the Republican Party or to a Republican Party identity. He doesn't-- he's not building things that a long-term Republican Party can thrive on. And I'm hoping that, you know, the good members of the Republican delegation of Congress will be thinking about the core values, the conservative values, that gave us a two party system rather than the Democratic Party versus Donald Trump.
KRISTIN MYERS: Now, we just heard Jeff Smith giving us an update on everything that's happening on the Hill, one of those pieces being President-elect Biden's stimulus plan. You served as the vice chair for the Joint Economic Committee. We just had initial jobless claims for last week come out. It was not good-- 965,000.
As you're talking to your colleagues in the House and in the Senate, especially on this economic piece as we look forward to the economic recovery, what's the hope for Americans in terms of stimulus checks of continued or sustained support? Does Congress right now have the appetite or the desire to continue to support the economy throughout 2021?
DON BEYER: I very much think that we do. I mean, interest rates are close to zero and will stay that way for the foreseeable future. It was really only Mitch McConnell holding it up in the Senate before. But we have to have unemployment insurance extended.
We now are at 4 million people that have been unemployed for longer than 27 weeks. 37% of the unemployed are long-term. We're 9.8 million fewer jobs than we had a year ago on February 1st. So now, the time-- and 1.3 million state and local employees have lost their job. And, of course, with the McConnell compromise, we got no money for state and local. So that will show up with Joe Biden tonight, I hope.
And there's-- and I'm hoping that we'll get the bigger checks also. We have a lot of people-- a lot of people have done really well. Savings rates-- all time high. But many people are still hurting. And that's why we're seeing this potentially double dip recession.
KRISTIN MYERS: You know, there was another Axios poll about whether the country is falling apart, and we actually had some bipartisanship there. Both Democrats and Republicans agree that the country is falling apart. However, I'm sure differences remain on why it's falling apart. Moving forward, Congressman, how do you and some of your colleagues plan on working together in unison, especially on some of these pieces around the economy, to help fix what a lot of folks view as a broken America right now, an America that is struggling economically?
DON BEYER: Kristin, I think intentionality will be the centerpiece of it. We have to want to work with each other. I really want to. In fact, it's been my standing orders that every piece of legislation we put together, we seek a Republican co-sponsor from the beginning.
I really like the Republicans I served with on Ways and Means and on the Joint Economic Committee. And I think we all understand that a lot of Americans are hurting. We need to put the country on a very strong investment basis, including a big infrastructure package, which we hope will come from Joe Biden.
You know, a lot of what-- it's not the only thing that divides us. Race certainly lingers as a major division factor, but also the way capitalism has really spread its benefits in very different ways. We have an enormous upper middle class, lots and lots of billionaires, but many people who have been completely left out. A lot of them may have been on the Mall last week.
KRISTIN MYERS: Really quickly, Congressman, I wanted to just ask you. We were talking a moment ago about the mask wearing. You have some of your colleagues that have now actually tested positive for coronavirus. We do have the vaccine out. Not sure how many members of Congress are willing or want to take it. I'm wondering if you worry for your health moving forward in Congress in the midst of this pandemic as some of your colleagues don't want to wear masks to protect themselves or others.
DON BEYER: Kristin, I've been really careful now for eight or nine months. You know, I'll race onto the floor, vote, and then leave as quickly as I can. And I did get the vaccine as soon as it was available. But what we saw last Wednesday in that lockdown room with Democrats and Republicans stuck for hours in the Capitol is just a handful of Republicans, sadly, who wouldn't wear a mask.
And three people have gotten sick since then, including Bonnie Watson Coleman, who is an African-American woman of color in her 70s recovering from cancer. And so they put her in the hospital right away. Brad Schneider from Illinois. Pramila Jayapal from Washington state. They all got coronavirus in that room from colleagues who refused to wear masks. I know Speaker Pelosi said they're going to start fining people who are not wearing masks in the Capitol. But it's a concern.
KRISTIN MYERS: All right. Virginia Congressman Don Beyer. Thank you so much for being with us here today.