President Donald Trump once set out exactly how he believed impeachment would feel to a president when discussing then-President Barack Obama.
In a “Fox & Friends” interview from November 2014, Trump claimed that Obama could be impeached for his executive actions cracking down on immigration, which Trump decried as unconstitutional.
“Do you think Obama seriously wants to be impeached and go through what Bill Clinton did? He would be a mess,” Trump said. “He would be thinking about nothing but. It would be a horror show for him. It would be an absolute embarrassment. It would go down on his record permanently.”
Prior to his presidency, Trump had publicly discussed impeachment scenarios regarding the three presidents before him and supported impeaching his two immediate predecessors, Obama and George W. Bush.
In a 2008 interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Trump said he wished House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ― who held the role from 2007 to 2011 and resumed the position in 2019 ― had done more to push for a Bush impeachment, which he said would have been a “wonderful thing.”
However, Trump defended Bill Clinton against his impeachment, saying that the reasons were “nonsense.” Clinton was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice after he lied under oath about an affair with a White House intern.