(CNN)Top White House aides, lawmakers, donors and political consultants are privately asking whether President Donald Trump realizes that losing the …
President Trump allies worry losing the house could mean impeachment President Trump’s top allies worry that losing the house in 2018 might mean impeachment. Veuer's Sam Berman has the full story Check out this story on …
Trump allies worry that losing the House means impeachment
Presidential impeachment 101: What to know 01:32
(CNN)Top
White House aides, lawmakers, donors and political consultants are
privately asking whether President Donald Trump realizes that losing the
House next year could put his presidency in peril.
In
more than a dozen interviews, Republicans inside and outside the White
House told CNN conversations are ramping up behind the scenes about
whether Trump fully grasps that his feuds with members of his own party
and shortage of legislative achievements could soon put the fate of his
presidency at risk.
Donors
who trekked to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in support of House Speaker Paul
Ryan were treated to a slide show late this summer to fundraise off
those very fears, according to multiple attendees. Among the slides: An
overview of the Democrats who would be tapped to lead key committees if
the GOP loses control, including Rep. Elijah Cummings as the head of the
House Oversight Committee.
To some
attendees, the subtext was clear. If Republicans forfeit the House,
Democrats will almost certainly create a spectacle that will derail
conservatives' agenda and the remainder of Trump's first term -- a
spectacle complete with a raft of new subpoenas, a spotlight on the
Russia investigation and, many are convinced, impeachment proceedings.
"When Democrats take control of the House they will absolutely move for
articles of impeachment," one Trump confidant predicted.
Alex Conant, a partner at GOP public affairs firm Firehouse Strategies, said Trump should focus on protecting his own party.
"The
number one thing Trump should be doing to save his presidency is
helping congressional Republicans maintain their majorities," Conant
said. "Instead he's allowing his allies like Steve Bannon to really
undermine Republican reelection campaigns. It's just reckless and
politically naive considering how devastating it would be to his
presidency."
Conant served in
George W. Bush's White House when Democrats swept control of the House
and Senate in the 2006 midterm elections -- and remembers the constant
stream of investigations and subpoenas, a stream he said is sure to look
more like a deluge in the Trump administration.
"It just cripples your agenda. You're constantly forced to play defense," Conant said.
The primary problem
Republican
handwringing over losing control of the House has played out largely in
public. But in the hushed conversations that follow, Republicans have
wondered whether Trump fully grasps the misery Democrats could unleash
on his presidency.
A number of Republicans asked not to have their names used in order to speak candidly about a sensitive topic.
"If
we lose the House, he could get impeached. Do you think he understands
that?" one top GOP donor recalled an exasperated Republican senator
saying privately.
"Won't it be
ironic that Steve Bannon helped get the President elected and
impeached?" another top Republican official said in a moment of venting.
Bannon,
who served in the White House as Trump's chief strategist before he was
fired in August, is planning to field primary challengers against
nearly every Republican senator up for reelection.
"Right
now, it's a season of war against a GOP establishment," Bannon
proclaimed at the socially conservative Values Voter Summit over the
weekend.
It's the latest in a string of political calculations that are set to backfire on the President, some Republicans warned.
"It
will be on steroids, the amount of lawyers, investigations, inspector
generals that come out of the woodwork" if Democrats win back the
House, predicted Sara Fagen, who served as Bush's White House political
director. "It will be very debilitating in a way they don't understand
yet."
Marc Short, director of
legislative affairs at the White House, said the White House hasn't
resigned itself to the notion of losing the House.
"We
don't have a defeatist approach on this," Short said. "There's no doubt
that history suggests that there's sort of a recalibration after the
first midterm, but I don't think we view it as that means it has to go
that way."
And he insisted the President is cognizant of the havoc Democrats could cause if they regain control of the House.
"I
think the President's keenly aware of that," Short said, adding that he
expects Democrats would move forward with articles of impeachment if
they win the majority.
GOP
operatives are already envisioning Trump family members and
acquaintances being dragged up to Capitol Hill over months to testify.
"Once
the House is lost, then it just becomes, 'Let's look into Don Jr.'s
tweets, let's subpoena his country club locker,'" one GOP strategist
quipped. "Nothing is going to get done."
"It's so much more painful than going right to a proceeding of impeachment," another senior Republican operative added.
Another GOP congressional aide predicted the Democrats would make Trump's life a "living hell."
Top
White House officials have openly discussed the threat of impeachment
among themselves, multiple sources said. And to many, the risk to
Trump's presidency is obvious. But White House personnel are loath to
broach the topic with the President, sources said.
"Nobody
over there is interested in delivering really bad news to the President
on a consistent basis," the GOP operative said, particularly when it
comes to the potential for impeachment proceedings. "Like, 'hey, this
could be a real thing. You shouldn't be so dismissive about it, because
Chuck (Schumer) and Nancy (Pelosi) aren't your friends.'"
The uphill impeachment process
Booting the president out of office is exceedingly difficult, a point conceded by even some of Trump's fiercest critics.
If
Democrats win the House, they could vote on articles of impeachment. If
at least one of those articles garners a majority vote, the president
is technically impeached, as was the case with former President Bill
Clinton in 1998.
Then the issue
moves to the Senate, which conducts a trial presided over by the Supreme
Court's chief justice. If two-thirds of the Senate finds the president
guilty, he is removed and the vice president becomes president.
No American president has ever been removed from office via the impeachment and conviction process.
While
Trump may not be overly preoccupied with the threat of impeachment, he
has been livid about what he sees as Congress' inability to execute his
campaign promises.
"The Congress
has been frustrating to him," retired Gen. John Kelly, Trump's chief of
staff, told reporters in the White House briefing room Thursday,
lamenting the sluggish pace of the legislative process. "In his view,
the solutions are obvious, whether it's tax cuts and tax reform, health
care, infrastructure programs, strengthening our military."
In
response to that frustration, the President has begun making as many
changes as he can unilaterally. He announced he was ending the Deferred
Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protected young immigrants
brought to the US illegally as children.
Last
week, he began to chip away at Obamacare with an executive order that
overhauls the insurance system. He chased it with an announcement that
the administration plans to end subsidies to insurance companies that
help low-income Americans pay for health care.
Trump also said he had no intention of certifying
Iran's compliance with the nuclear deal, punting the issue to Congress
to determine whether to reimpose sanctions on Iran and scrap the deal.
Still,
the moves fall short of a signature legislative accomplishment. They
also risk charges of hypocrisy after Republicans, including Trump, spent
years hammering Obama for governing via pen and phone rather than
through Congress.
"The most
important factor for how the Republican Party does in 2018 is whether we
cut middle class taxes or not," said Corry Bliss, the executive
director for the Congressional Leadership Fund and American Action
Network. "The Republican Party controls the government and we're going
to be judged on delivering results."
Slow progress on the Hill
Trump's
approach to governing via executive action highlights the precarious
situation the President's team has found itself in, roughly a year
before the 2018 midterms, after multiple failed attempts to repeal and
replace Obamacare and on the precipice of a tax reform fight that is far
from a surefire victory and could easily spill over into next year.
"We're
really proud of the successes that he's had so far but they're really
limited to the things he controls and oversees directly," Nick Ayers,
chief of staff to Vice President Mike Pence, said of the President's
accomplishments to a room full of donors recently, according to a
recording obtained by Politico. "We're really frustrated with what our Republican Congress has not been able to do."
Even
as some of Trump's allies see little culpability on the President's
side, many on the opposite end of Pennsylvania Avenue take a different
view. They see a President who has done little to sell his agenda since
taking office. Instead, he has cut deals with Democrats, sparred with
top-ranking Republicans and stood by as Bannon takes aim at sitting
senators. All moves that are hindering his legislative progress and,
Republicans fear, squandering the GOP's window of opportunity while it
controls both the House and Senate.
In
his speech to GOP donors, Ayers served up a dim projection for the
midterms: "We're on track to get shellacked next year," he said.
He
implored donors to "purge" Republican lawmakers who don't line up
behind Trump's agenda. And, perhaps in a sign of the West Wing's
defiance or political naiveté, he offered a glossy assessment of the
President's fate.
"The President's going 
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