House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Democrat billionaire mega-donor Tom Steyer are fighting over Steyer’s new $10 million ad campaign urging Congress to impeach President Donald Trump.
Pelosi, noting that Democrats have failed to win back the support of the voters they lost to Trump in 2016, would rather the party focus on issues than on attempts to undo the election. Polls, and special elections throughout the year, have consistently suggested that the electorate is unmoved by talk of impeachment and theories of Russian collusion.
Politico reported Wednesday that while Pelosi praised Steyer’s impeachment ad in public, she was privately furious about it: “Pelosi played it off, but privately she was peeved. She told lawmakers at a Democratic leadership meeting soon after that she had reached out to the Democratic megadonor to tell him that his $10 million ad campaign is a distraction.”
Steyer hit back, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, saying he has “immense respect for Nancy . but she and the whole political establishment in Washington, D.C., are dead wrong about this.”
Steyer also told the Chronicle:
I don’t think the deepest fears and needs of American people are a distraction … I think the American people are looking for something different. … They’re looking for someone to represent their deepest values and their deepest fears … This guy [Trump] is a clear danger to the American people. … Do you want to wait until the disaster has happened before you do something? … I don’t look at this as something as something between Nancy and me. … “It is something between Nancy and the American people.
Steyer is said to be considering a run for Senate in 2018 against incumbent Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).
Pelosi, meanwhile, is hoping to use every resource available to the Democratic Party to win back the gavel as Speaker of the House in 2018.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He was named one of the “most influential” people in news media in 2016. He is the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.