Steny Hoyer warns that impeaching Trump would take Dems’ ‘eye off the ball’ on other promises

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House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., told Fox News' "Your World with Neil Cavuto" Wednesday that potential impeachment proceedings against President Trump would turn into "a huge distraction" from the party's legislative agenda "without the probability of success."

"It does take our eye off the ball because an impeachment process is an extraordinarily all-consuming process, of the public's attention and the Congress' attention," Hoyer told Cavuto. "And we promised the American people that we would focus on them, on their jobs, on their healthcare, on the availability of affordable-quality health care, on climate change, reform issues."

Hoyer said he agreed with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who told The Washington Post earlier this week that she opposed impeaching Trump in the absence of "compelling and overwhelming and bipartisan" evidence, adding that the president was "just not worth it."

"We’re going to have an election in about 18 months," Hoyer said.  "The American people elected somebody who I think ought not to be president of the United States. But they elected him, and a lot’s going to happen in the next, probably, few months. The Mueller report, actions by the Southern District of New York, House and Senate hearings – House hearings in particular, and we’ll see what develops there."

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Pelosi's statement ruffled feathers among some of the more vocal left-wing Democrats, who have vowed to push for Trump's impeachment. Hoyer took a verbal shot at Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota on Monday, telling Fox News that "we've got 62 new [Democratic] members. Not three."

"It’s not that Speaker Pelosi and I want to see President Trump [be] the president of the United States, because we disagree with him and we think he’s doing things that are not good for the country," Hoyer said Wednesday, "but we have a responsibility to do things we do think are good for the country and we want to be about that."