Missouri’s Bush decries Trump as ‘white supremacist-in-chief’ as House impeaches
Missouri Democratic Rep. Cori Bush condemned President Donald Trump as white supremacist as she called for his immediate ouster following last week’s deadly attack on the Capitol.
The Democratic-controlled House voted Wednesday 232 to 197 to make Trump the first president in history to be impeached twice — one week after his supporters attacked the Capitol and a week before he leaves the White House. He is accused of incitement of insurrection under the House impeachment articles, which were also supported by 10 Republicans.
The Missouri freshman, in only her second week in office, has emerged as one of the most vocal and visible advocates for accountability in the wake of the riot, which claimed five lives and occurred after weeks of conspiracy-mongering by the president and his allies about cities with high minority populations.
“If we fail to remove a white supremacist president who incited a white supremacist insurrection, it’s communities like Missouri’s 1st District that suffer the most. The 117th Congress must understand that we have a mandate to legislate in defense of Black lives,” said Bush, a nurse and Black Lives Matter organizer who represents St. Louis.
“And the first step in that process is to root out white supremacy, starting with the white supremacist-in-chief,” Bush said, drawing a few boos from Republicans in the House chamber.
The Senate will require a two-thirds majority to convict him, something which would require at least 18 GOP votes if the trial takes place before the two newly elected Democrats from Georgia take their seats.
Last week’s chaos took place after the president spent weeks refusing to concede and promoting baseless claims of voter fraud after losing the November election to President-elect Joe Biden.
Many Republican lawmakers stood by Trump as he challenged the election outcome in court and continued to support him as they voted to block Biden’s electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania just hours after the riot.
Bush has called for the expulsion of all 147 Republicans who voted to overturn the election, a move that would require the removal of six Missouri lawmakers.
“Whereas refusing to concede the outcome of the 2020 Presidential election and raising baseless allegations of fraud in States in which Black, Brown, and Indigenous people have been instrumental to the election outcome suggests racial animus and a continuation of efforts by Republican Members of Congress to disenfranchise Black, Brown, and Indigenous voters,” Bush’s expulsion resolution states.
‘Lions are required’
Such mass expulsion is extremely unlikely.
But a handful of individual lawmakers face increasing pressure to resign and could face censure or expulsion hearings for their lead roles in the effort to contest the election, including Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley.
In a guest column in The Southeast Missourian, Hawley defended his decision to proceed with an objection to Pennsylvania’s 20 electoral votes after the riot.
“Some wondered why I stuck with my objection following the violence at the Capitol. The reason is simple: I will not bow to a lawless mob, or allow criminals to drown out the legitimate concerns of my constituents,” said Hawley, whose objection to Pennsylvania’s votes was based on an arcane legal argument against the constitutionality of mail-in voting rather than any evidence of voter fraud.
The attack on the Capitol, which took place after Trump urged supporters to converge on the building, caused 10 Republicans to formally break with the president and support his impeachment, including Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, the No. 3 Republican in the House and the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney.
No House Republicans supported Trump’s previous impeachment 13 months ago.
Missouri Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver’s speech appeared aimed at persuading Republicans to join Democrats in the effort to remove Trump and possibly prohibit him from running for office in the future.
“Madam speaker, it would be an error to suppose that men and women can be courageous every day. It would be unfair to anticipate that I or any member of this body could be a lion every day. No one is expected to be a lion day after day after day, but on this day lions are required,” Cleaver told the chamber.
Cleaver and Kansas Democratic Rep. Sharice Davids both voted to impeach Trump in 2019 for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress after a months-long investigation into his efforts to pressure Ukraine to investigate Biden’s family ahead of the 2020 election.
At that time, Cleaver chose not to speak on the floor ahead of the vote, calling the debate a “stomach-churning experience.”
His decision to take to the floor Wednesday highlights the ways in which last week’s attack, considered “sedition and insurrection” by the country’s military leaders, has deeply affected Cleaver and other lawmakers of color.
Calls for unity, after election challenge
The eight House Republicans from Missouri and Kansas who voted to overturn the election in the aftermath of the riot have rejected the calls for Trump’s removal in the final days of his presidency.
Missouri GOP Rep. Jason Smith, who represents southeastern Missouri, the region with Trump’s strongest base of support in the state, said that he supported an investigation into the security breakdowns and cause of the violence.
But he did not lay any blame on Trump for the chaos.
“Less than 50 feet from where we stand in this room, a young lady lost her life through those doors. Through those doors. I was in this chamber when those gunshots rang. That is real stuff. That should never happen in the people’s House,” Smith said.
“For the first time can the House Democrats and the speaker of the House put the people before politics. Please put the people before politics. At a time when our nation is more divided than ever before, let’s put people before politics.”
Smith’s call for unity came one week after his vote to throw out two states’ electors, just hours after the deadly riot.
Rep. Sam Graves, a Republican whose district includes the Kansas City Northland, said in a statement that “Speaker Pelosi’s politically-motivated impeachment only further divides a country in need of healing.”
Graves called the process “waste of taxpayer resources that “won’t even be finished before President Trump leaves office,” a week after voting to overturn the election to keep Trump in power.
Only one Missouri House Republican who voted against overturning the election, Rep. Ann Wagner, who represents the St. Louis suburbs.
Wagner said her vote last week to uphold the election results was a matter of principle, but she panned the push to impeach Trump with only a week before he leaves office.
“Part of the difficulty here is that he’s gone in less than a week and I don’t see this moving to conviction in the Senate so I see it is a little gimmicky and divisive,” Wagner told reporters Wednesday hours before voting against impeachment.
The party breakdown for the Missouri and Kansas delegations was identical to the 2019 vote with only the Democrats from the Kansas City and St. Louis metros voting to impeach, but Wednesday’s vote included three members who weren’t in office during the previous impeachment vote: Bush, the Missouri Democrat, and Kansas Republican Reps. Jake LaTurner and Tracey Mann.
LaTurner wasn’t able to physically go to the floor for the debate or vote after testing positive for COVID-19 just hours after the riot. LaTurner instead relied on Mann to serve as his proxy to cast his vote under a rule the House adopted last year to prevent the spread of the virus.
The proxy voting system was strongly opposed by Republicans, including Kansas GOP Rep. Ron Estes, who mocked Democrats for using the option just weeks ago.
LaTurner said in a statement Tuesday that he supports a bipartisan investigation of the security breakdown, but he said impeaching Trump was unnecessary as he prepares to leave office.
“The Electoral College has spoken; it is time for our country to turn the page. There will be a peaceful transfer of power on January 20th when President-elect Biden is sworn in, just as our nation has always done since our founding,” said LaTurner, who did acknowledge his vote to throw out Arizona’s certified electoral votes just seven days earlier.
Mann issued a statement Tuesday evening that called impeachment divisive, but unlike LaTurner he did not reference Biden’s status as president-elect when he spoke of the transition of power.
“Impeachment will only lead to further division in our great nation and add to the political chaos. We will have a peaceful transition of power on January 20th,” Mann said. “I will not oversee the slow decline of our nation, but instead will work to ensure a bright future for our children and grandchildren.”
This story was originally published January 13, 2021 at 2:37 PM.
