The real reason Donald Trump’s House GOP ally Peter King is quitting
Thus far in 2019 we’ve seen so many House Republicans announcing they’re quitting at the end of the term, and in some cases resigning on the spot, we’ve lost count. The surreal exodus continued today when Peter King, an ally of Donald Trump, suddenly announced that he’s “retiring” as well. So what’s really going on here?
To be clear, House Republican Peter King of New York (the one who’s retiring) is not the same guy as psychotically racist House Republican Steve King of Iowa (who has been removed from all House committees but refuses to quit). Peter King is not nearly as racist as Steve King, but Peter King is still a racist. More to the point, Peter King is a defender of Donald Trump. So why’s he quitting?
We’ve seen a number of House Republicans “retire” who are vaguely anti-Trump. We’ve taken this as a sign that perhaps they’re looking to vote in favor of Trump’s impeachment, and they don’t want to have to deal with the reelection fallout of having to face a pro-Trump Republican primary challenger. Peter King is coming at this from the opposite side. He’s surely going to vote not to impeach Trump, but doing so will make him vulnerable to a Democratic challenger. He won reelection by a single digit margin in 2018, and voting against impeachment could cost him his seat, so he’s just not going to run at all.
The upshot is this. Every House Republican is going to have to vote “yes” or “no” on Donald Trump’s impeachment. The mere act of voting on impeachment at all is going to place a large number of those House Republicans in severe trouble when it comes to their reelection bids, because they’ll face backlash from one side or the other. That’s why so many of them are quitting, whether they’re pro-Trump or anti-Trump. Donald Trump’s impeachment is wiping out the current Republican Party in the House.
