President Donald Trump shared a warning from Pastor Robert Jeffress about a “Civil War-like fracture” if Democrats should impeach him.
“They know they couldn’t beat him in 2016 against Hillary Clinton, they’re increasingly aware of the fact that they won’t win against him in 2020, and impeachment is the only tool they have to get rid of Donald Trump—and the Democrats don’t care if they burn down and destroy this nation in the process.
“I have never seen them [evangelical Christians] more angry over any issue than this attempt to illegitimately remove this president from office, overturn the 2016 election, and negate the votes of millions of evangelicals in the process. They know that the only impeachable offense President Trump has committed was beating Hillary Clinton in 2016.
“That’s the unpardonable sin for which the Democrats will never forgive him. And I do want to make this prediction this morning: if the Democrats are successful in removing the president from office, I’m afraid it will cause a Civil War-like fracture in this nation from which this country will never heal.”
Trump retweeted on Sept. 29 what Jeffress had said, adding his own comment in parentheses.
The warning sparked hashtags on Twitter, including #CivilWar2 and #CivilWarSignup. Some people on Twitter accused Trump of predicting a new Civil War.
It comes about a week after House Democrats said they would push an inquiry into impeachment, with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) saying Sept. 24 that Trump “seriously violated the Constitution.”
The move prompted the release of a whistleblower complaint along with a transcript of Trump’s call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
The House would need a simple majority to impeach the president before it’s turned over to the Senate, which would need more than a two-thirds majority, or 67 percent, to remove a president. No president has ever been successfully removed from office. The last president to be impeached was Bill Clinton, and before him, former President Andrew Johnson, who was impeached several years after the Civil War ended.