Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats are "normalizing" President Donald Trump by not talking impeachment, billionaire California activist Tom Steyer told Politico Tuesday.
Despite an April poll suggesting that a campaign based on impeaching Trump would backfire on the Democrats trying to take back the U.S. House, Steyer told Politico's Off Message podcast that he is helping the party by pushing them on the impeachment issue.
"Impeaching the president of the United States is upsetting the status quo," Steyer told Politico. "Anytime in American history that there has been an attempt to upset the status quo, there have been people within the status quo — within the establishment — saying, 'It may be true, it may be something we should deal with, it may be important, but not now.'
"If you look at the civil rights movement, the pushback was not, 'You're not telling the truth,' the pushback was, 'We're dealing with it in time. Stand down so we can deal with it in time.'"
A poll by National Public Radio, PBS NewsHour and Marist, found that 47 percent of voters would definitely vote against a candidate who wanted to remove Trump from office, while only 42 percent would definitely vote for a candidate who would make such a promise.
Among critical independent voters, 47 also say they would vote against candidates favoring impeachment, NPR noted.
Steyer told Politico, though, he believed he is energizing the voters Democrats would need to win back the House with the impeachment issue. He charged that the party is risking its relevancy by not jumping on the issue.
"The founders gave us impeachment to answer a reckless, lawless, and dangerous president and every day that his behavior is accepted, every day that you don't oppose it, it becomes enshrined as the way things are done," Steyer told Politico.
"You have normalized this presidency, you have normalized his behavior, and then at the end of four years when you come out and, you know it's inevitable, 'It's outrageous what he's done.' Really? Because for the last 1,300 days you've kind of gone along with it. … How much credibility — I think there's a question here."
Time magazine reported last October that Steyer had spent more than $10 million, by the billionaire's own estimates, on ads around the country trying to energize an impeachment movement against Trump.
Steyer, 60, who made his fortune in hedge funds before retiring in 2012, has spent more than $165 million of his personal fortune into supporting progressive candidates and causes over the past two presidential election cycles, Time wrote.
"What we know is there are millions of Americans who don't vote because they are not hearing the truth," Steyer claimed to Politico. "They don’t think that the existing political establishment wants to talk about the basic questions of the day."
Texas Democrat U.S. Rep. Al Green, who has led impeachment efforts in the House, though, told Politico the issue was bigger than Steyer and didn't want to make it about him.
"People who are rich and trying to accomplish goals are no better than people who are poor and indigent and trying to accomplish goals," Green told Politico.
Jesse Hunt, the National Republican Campaign Committee press secretary, said to Politico that Steyer's effort is muddling the Democratic election message, which is fine with him.
"Tom Steyer is stoking the flames of this ludicrous progressive pipe dream, further complicating Nancy Pelosi's plan to regain the majority," Hunt told Politico. "The Democratic Party's midterm messaging is being led by two out-of-touch San Francisco liberals whose only desire is to appeal to the progressive wing of the party — what could possibly go wrong for them?"
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.