A Pence Presidency Is No Longer Just Dinner Party Chatter—Is He Up to It?
As House Democrats ponder the politics of impeaching Donald J. Trump, they are weighing the possible outcomes. An impeachment inquiry could weaken the president before next year's election and give the White House back to the Democrats, or it could backfire, the way the GOP's effort to oust Bill Clinton did in 1998. But there's a third option: impeachment could succeed. As a senior staffer on the House Judiciary Committee framed the dilemma, "What if we're left with President Pence?"
That scenario has seemed far-fetched—until this week. At the moment there do not seem to be enough GOP senators who would vote to convict Trump if the Democratic-controlled House passes articles of impeachment against him. But the president hasn't been able to quash "Ukraine-gate," the scandal that erupted after a U.S. intelligence whistleblower reported that Trump pressed Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky for dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Releasing the transcript of the call, which the White House apparently believed was exculpatory, only intensified the pressure. A recent Fox News poll showed a majority—51 percent—now want Trump impeached and removed from office. That was the first major poll showing a majority in favor of Trump's ouster.
But it's a separate, unrelated presidential phone call that's making Trump more vulnerable—and a Pence presidency less unlikely.
Trump's October 6 announcement, after a call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, that the administration would remove U.S. troops from northeast Syria, enabling Turkey to attack Syrian Kurds, enraged Republican senators. Ankara believes the Kurds in Syria aid a separatist group within Turkey, but Kurdish fighters have been crucial U.S. allies in the defeat of the Islamic State group. Like most of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, GOP leaders saw Trump's pullout as an indefensible abandonment of a stalwart American ally—and a reckless move that played into the hands of ISIS, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Not a single Republican senator voiced support of the troop withdrawal. Majority Leader Mitch
