WASHINGTON — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned her fellow lawmakers that President Trump “must go” during a fiery impeachment opening debate that saw GOP Rep. Jim Jordan accuse Democrats of wanting to “cancel” the president as he also cited the American greatness that led us to be first to land on the moon.
“He must go. He is a clear and present danger to the nation that we all love,” Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Tuesday afternoon ahead of a House vote on a single article of impeachment accusing Trump of inciting an insurrection when his supporters stormed the Capitol last week.
“The president must be impeached and I believe the president must be convicted by the Senate as a constitutional remedy to ensure the republic will be safe from this man who is resolutely determined to tear down the things we hold dear, the things that hold us together,” she said.
Describing pols as “guardians of the republic,” the speaker called on lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to search their souls before voting to impeach Trump, making him the first president in history to be impeached twice.
But in a fiery rebuke, Jordan, of Ohio, one of the president’s fiercest defenders, accused Democrats of being “obsessed” with prosecuting Trump.
“They want to cancel the president!” he roared.
“The president cut taxes. The president reduced regulation. The president, prior to COVID, had the greatest economy, the lowest unemployment in 50 years,” he said.
“This attack on the First Amendment has to stop,” Jordan continued, before linking his defense against Trump’s impeachment to the Moon Landing.
“That’s what this country is capable of. That’s what we can do. And we have the Congress to represent the people who did that,” he said.
Jordan also invoked America’s pioneering spirit in an impassioned closing argument.
“Think about this,” Jordan said. “Think about this, in 1903, in Kitty hawk North Carolina, two guys fly this thing they called a plane a hundred feet. Barely got off the ground. Barely got off the ground.
“Amazing thing. 44 years later, Chuck Yeager breaks the sound barrier. In 44 years we go from two guys flying a contraption they called a plane a few hundred feet to Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier,” Jordan said.
“And 22 years after that — 22 years after that — another American steps on the moon. Think about it,” Jordan said, referring to Neil Armstrong in 1969 becoiming the first human on the surface of the moon.
“In one lifetime, in 66 years, two guys flying a hundred feet to putting a man on the moon. That’s what this country is capable of. That’s what we can do,” Jordan said.
“So I hope, I hope we defeat this, I hope we can begin to come together and recognize the greatness of the American people and focus on the things they want us to focus on.”