Rep. Max Rose (D-NY), a moderate freshman House Democrat who had previously not backed impeachment, reportedly endorsed House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) impeachment inquiry on Wednesday evening a day after getting a primary challenger from the left.
“I intend to fully support this impeachment inquiry and follow the facts,” Rose reportedly said at a Staten Island town hall.
Rose represents Staten Island and his district, which the Staten Island Advance calls “Trumpland,” voted for President Donald Trump in 2016. Since coming to the House in 2018, Rose has criticized Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal and ripped Rep. Ilhan Omar’s (D-MN) antisemitism. He has also opposed Medicare for All.
Richard-Olivier Marius, who campaigned for Rose in 2018, reportedly said on Tuesday that he is taking on Rose because he is not supporting impeachment. Marius is also a member of the Democratic Socialists of America.
“The fact that Max Rose does not support impeachment boggles me,” Marius told the Advance. “I think the call to impeach the president is fair and something that needs to be done without hesitation, and the fact that Max Rose rejects it is a problem, and it needs to be challenged aggressively.”
Rose, who had been one of about a dozen House Democrats who was not on board with the impeachment inquiry, had previously said “all options” still remained on the table for him and that he is “impeachment curious.” Left-wing groups warned Rose that he could be in trouble in his primary race if he did not back impeachment.
One activist, Paul Sperling, the director of the Staten Island Progressive Action Network, recently even accused Rose of “acting like a conservative,” saying that Rose is “not even a centrist” after many centrist Democrats backed Pelosi’s impeachment inquiry.