Freshman GOP Rep Explains Why He’s ‘Strongly Considering’ Impeachment: ‘Obvious That the President Is No Longer Qualified to Hold That Office’

Newly-elected Republican Rep. Peter Meijer (MI) came out as leaning toward supporting the House Democrat effort to impeach Donald Trump over the Capitol insurrection, saying he is “strongly considering” the move because “it is obvious that the president is no longer qualified to hold that office.”

Meijer joins another House Republican, Illinois Rep. Adam Kinzinger, as a second possible GOP defection to support House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s announced plan to launch an impeachment move early this week. Kinzinger had already called for the removal of Trump just one day after the MAGA mob violently assaulted the Capitol, killing a police officer in the rioting. However, Kinzinger only invoked the 25th Amendment to accomplish Trump’s ouster, and has yet to explicitly come out in favor of impeaching Trump.

Speaking with CNN’s Erin Burnett, the freshman Congressman, Meijer, who replaced retiring libertarian Independent Rep. Justin Amash, recounted his shocked reaction to Trump’s tacit approval of the assault even as he and his Congressional colleagues were sheltering in the Capitol for their safety.

“Erin, I had a break,” Meijer explained. “On Wednesday at around 4:17 p.m., after we fled the House chambers, after we knew at least one person had died, when we were in a secure location, we didn’t know whether any of our colleagues were injured or killed, and the one person who could tamp down the rhetoric, the one person who could have put an end to that violence, the president, he put out the video that said, ‘We love you, you’re special, come home.’ No condemnation, no urge to bring things back. To me that was an abject failure of leadership and something just broke then.”

“What would make you cast this vote?” Burnett pressed.

“I’ve had a lot of discussion with colleagues,” Meijer explained, before noting that the objections to impeachment he has heard are not attempts to absolve Trump from his responsibility in inciting the insurrectionist attack. “There are folks who are concerned about the process of impeachment, they’re concerned about the impact and what that would mean from public reaction. There are folks concerned about the timing. I have not heard anyone arguing with the merits.”

“To me this is not the timing that is ideal,” Meijer went on. “I would prefer that we have a more fulsome investigation into what happened. Most of what I know about January 6 came either from personal experience or from Twitter. But at the end of the day, I think it is obvious that the president is no longer qualified to hold that office.”

Burnett then asked Meijer, an Iraq War veteran, about the reports that more armed protests are planned for Washington and the 50 state capitals between now and Inauguration Day.

“It’s a vacuum of leadership, plain and simple, and something that deeply worries me,” Meijer said, calling out Trump for hunkering down in the White House as the country roils over the unprecedented assault. “You have one person in command and somebody steps into that breach, and right now we just have silence. That’s incredibly worrisome. I’m very worried about the violence not only that occurred already which was horrific, it could have been far worse, but also I go forward with the expectation there will be more violence. I was one of nine freshmen to vote to certify the election and not to vote to overturn it, and a lot of us are talking amongst ourselves concerned about our security, some of us have already experienced death threats, put on armed guard. My concern is folks will try to kill us. That should not intimidate us because loyalty to the Constitution should supercede everything else.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.