Tuberville says Senate ‘couldn’t get the votes’ to impeach Biden

Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) joined the growing number of GOP senators who have expressed hesitation over whether an impeachment inquiry into President Biden would move forward in in the Senate. 

Tuberville said the Senate will have to “wait and see what happens,” noting that the upper chamber “couldn’t get the votes” to convict Biden in an impeachment trial. 

“You don’t bring a vote to the floor unless you are pretty sure that you can get the amount of votes that you need,” he said on NBC’s “Meet the Press NOW” on Tuesday. “I know that wouldn’t make it to anywhere over here in the Senate. That probably wouldn’t even — wouldn’t even let it make it to the floor. But again, this is all up to the House. We got enough problems going on right now.”

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) directed House committees Tuesday to open a formal impeachment inquiry into Biden based on House probes into his family’s foreign business dealings and the prosecution of his son.

While the inquiry has some support among the House GOP, it will likely face hurdles in the Senate, where the Democrats hold a slim majority. Other Republican senators, including Sens. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) and John Thune (R-S.D.), have also expressed opposition to the House pursuing an impeachment inquiry.

Tuberville said that any case brought against Biden will need to be “ironclad” to pursue an impeachment.

“I’m not for impeachment unless it is ironclad,” he said. “As I said about President Trump, if you’re gonna come after a former president or president, let’s not waste time. Let’s know the truth. Let’s be able to bring it out. Let the American people know.”

“We got enough problems up here right now without going through an impeachment process, but they’ll do the right thing,” he said, speaking of the House. “Hopefully we just find out what’s going on and, and American people get the truth.”

Tuberville’s call for Congress to “not waste time” with a Biden impeachment comes as the Alabama senator has blocked military promotions in the Senate for months over a Pentagon policy that covers travel expenses for abortion care. When asked if he believed his blockade was slowing down the business of government as a potential shutdown looms, Tuberville said he does not.

“No, no,” he responded. “Again, we could do these later on in the night. I know the importance of a government shutdown. We don’t need to do that. I’m not for that. Think we’ll do a [continuing resolution], but the bottom line is, this is a two-way street. Senator [Chuck] Schumer can do his job and let me do my job, but all the blame for some reason is going on me.”