The real reason Carly Fiorina just came out in favor of impeaching Donald Trump

| 4:30 pm EST December 16, 2019
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“Carly Fiorina” is a name you haven’t heard in awhile, and you were probably hoping you’d never have to hear again. She ran such an embarrassing, divisive, and pathologically dishonest 2016 presidential campaign, when she fell off the stage it was probably her least humiliating moment. But she’s back in the headlines today and… wait, this can’t be right: she’s siding with the House Democrats on impeachment. So what’s going on here?

To be clear, Carly Fiorina said two things today in the same breath. She said that it’s vital that Donald Trump be impeached, and she also said that she’s not ruling out voting for him in 2020. Fiorina is a frequent liar who can’t be trusted, so it’s tempting to merely write this off as yet another instance of her playing both sides. But here’s the thing: she’s giving something away here.

Yes, Fiorina is clearly trying to make herself relevant again by making waves. But consider the wave she just made. She’s calling for the sitting President of the United States of her own party to be impeached. This won’t get her anywhere in Republican politics as long as Donald Trump is still in office. So by definition, she has to be making a play for 2020. No, really. She appears to be trying to weaken him so that she can run a primary challenge against him in 2020. Or perhaps she’s hoping to weaken him to the point that he doesn’t even bother running in 2020. The latter isn’t completely unrealistic, as Trump’s 2020 poll numbers are so awful, he’s not currently in contention – although he’d have to cut some kind of plea deal in the process.

So why is Carly Fiorina saying in the same breath that she’s not ruling out voting for Donald Trump? She is a politician, even if she’s an extraordinarily ineffective one. She may simply be trying to get away with calling for Trump’s impeachment, while avoiding being viciously attacked by him. It’s not that Fiorina has any realistic chance in 2020, even if Trump is out of the way by then. It’s that she correctly thinks there may be an opening in 2020 for some other Republican, and she’s looking at taking her shot.